


wonderland

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Friendship, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Sharing a Bed, Telepathy, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, meddling meddlers meddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Six weeks after being abandoned in Siberia, Tony wakes in a Tower, next to the man who broke his heart and his trust. But the world--whatever Wonderland world they’ve landed in--isn’t like their own.The Avengers are happy here. Tony and Steve are married here. With a direct line to Steve’s emotions and the team that he’s always wanted--Tony is more than a little tempted to stay.Seeing how happy Tony is, how healthy Bucky is--Steve doesn’t disagree.But there are cracks in Wonderland and the shiny paint peeling might leave a nightmare behind--one that Tony and Steve will need each other more than ever, to escape.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 46
Kudos: 493
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Cap-IM Big Bang and had the pleasure of working with [cachette](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21571858) & [tishawish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tishawish). They created amazingly gorgeous artwork that I am in awe of! 

He wakes up in a borrowed bed in Wakanda, a sick heavy feeling churning in his gut. 

Bucky is curled up next to him, snoring softly, his hair sprawled across his pillow and in Steve’s mouth and he brushes it aside as he sits up, rubbing his eyes. 

Bucky doesn’t even stir, and it makes Steve smile through the turmoil in his belly. Bucky trusts him enough to sleep next to him again, to leave Sam’s bed when nightmares chase him from sleep and find refuge in Steve’s company, just like they had as children, when life was simple and innocent and endless. 

It feels trivial, a tiny thing--like nothing at all, but it’s  _ everything _ \--a sign of everything Bucky has remembered, how far he’s come. 

“Where you goin?” Bucky asks, sleep slurred and Steve shakes his head.

“Gonna find some food. Go back to sleep--it’s still early. I’ll send Sam to get you when breakfast is ready.” 

Bucky blinks up at him, bleary eyed and too knowing and Steve knows what he’s about to say--and he can’t. He can’t handle it. 

Not today.

He throws his pillow at Bucky and it’s batted aside before it can connect, but it buys him enough time to slip out. 

The hall is empty--T'challa stopped putting guards in the Avengers quarters after the first few days here. Now, almost a month after retrieving Sam and the others from the Raft, six weeks after he and Bucky limped away from Siberia, he's comfortable in the palace, as comfortable as he can be in a place that isn't home and never will be. 

Even if today he wants to drag Bucky into the quinjet and fly away and never look back. 

Natasha is in the common room, pouring a cup of coffee and she watches him as he comes in and sits down across from her. 

"Did he sleep last night?" 

He nods. "Sam upset?" 

She rolls her eyes and he almost feels bad for the question but doesn't quite retract it. 

"You ready for today?" she asks and Steve closes his eyes. 

No. 

_ No _ . 

He won't ever be ready for today. 

"I don't think I get an opinion," he says, forcing a smile that feels like a grimace. 

She doesn't contradict him, doesn't reassure him. Just watches him with that endless patience of hers. He almost hates her for that. 

"It's ok," Bucky says, and Steve cranes his head, looking at him in the doorway, sleep rumpled and achingly familiar. "I promise, Stevie. It's going to be ok." 

He doesn't answer. Doesn't know how. 

He just smiles, false and bright, the smile he learned when he danced on stage for the USO and if Bucky remembers that it's fake, he doesn't say anything. 

~*~ 

"You don't have to come," Bucky says, and Steve looks up from where he's sketching. Bucky is looking at him with that slightly guilty expression Steve hates. Like he's doing something wrong. 

"I know I don't have to," he says, lightly. "But I'm not lettin' you do this alone." 

"I'm sorry," Bucky says, softy. 

He isn't sure he believes that. Not that he'd ever say it--but there's something hungry in Bucky's eyes, when Shuri talks about cryo. It’s the same hunger he saw in Bucky’s eyes when they were in Europe and talking about Brooklyn--he misses it. 

Steve shoves that thought aside. It's not fair to think about. "We'll figure it out. You can get some sleep, while we do." 

Bucky tilts his head, studies Steve. "You gonna talk to Stark?" 

He doesn't flinch. He doesn't touch the phone in his pocket, tucked away like a talisman. 

He doesn't do anything but shrug, because today is about Bucky and what he needs, about cryo and healing and the future. 

And Tony--Tony is Steve's baggage, Steve's past. 

As much as Steve might miss him--he doesn't belong here, today. 

~*~ 

After. 

When it's over and Bucky is entombed--Shuri says it's the wrong word, but it doesn't feel wrong, it  _ feels _ like an icy grave--in his cryo chamber and T'challa has reassured him and been pulled away and Nat is holding a quietly crying Sam, her face crunched in mild panic--when it's over and his team feels like they're falling apart and he is too raw and wounded to fix them--

Shuri takes him by the elbow, and pulls him to her quarters. 

"Sit," she orders, bossy and confidant in a way that reminds him, distantly, of Tony. A self-assuredness that came from wealth and brilliance and a carefully cultivated public mask. 

He sits. "Thank you, princess," he says, habit more than feeling and she snorts. 

"Do not thank me for doing something you hate, Captain Rogers. Your brother has thanked me, and his lover has thanked me and you--your thanks are hollow lies. Don't insult us both with them." 

He blinks at her, slowly, and then, "Sam hates it too." 

She inclines her head. "He does. But he knows it's necessary and what Barnes wants. You  _ know _ , but you don't accept it." Her eyes softened, just a little, and she leans forward. "This isn't your fight, Steve." 

His eyes burn a little, and she sighs. Slides a small cup of steaming tea to him. "You have a battle still," she says, and he blinks at her. "But this one--this belongs to your brother and he is strong enough for it. Are you strong enough for yours?" 

He opens his mouth and Shuri smiles, wide, sharp white teeth against dark skin, and it feels almost predatory. But her voice is gentle, gentle, when she says, "Drink, Captain." 

He does. 

The tea is sweet and searingly hot, and blazes in his veins. He gags a little, and swallows, swallows it all because his mama raised him right and Shuri is watching him, careful and expectant and when he lowers the cup, the world spins. 

The world spins and she says, softly, "I hope you are strong enough, Rogers." 

He has a moment of panic, a moment to wonder what the hell that  _ means _ , a moment of bright hot  _ fear _ . 

And then the world goes up in bright purple smoke. 

~*~

Tony sits up blearily, and the first thing he realizes is this? Whatever the hell  _ this  _ is--it is  _ not _ his bedroom at the compound and the lump next to him isn't Rhodey. 

He doesn't look, not yet, because he honestly thought he left behind black out days in his early twenties and there's a fair bit of personal shame in finding himself in a strange bed next to a strange body yet again. 

It's been a shitty month and a half, he's the first to admit that, but he didn't think he'd fallen  _ this _ far. 

"I didn't even get drunk," he mumbles, even though there's a fruity bittersweet taste in his mouth he can't account for. 

The lump stirs next to him, and Tony feels his heart stop--a strange sensation and one he'd very much like to do without--when Steve lifts his head, all blond and scruff and beautiful. 

"Tony?" he mumbles. 

He stares, because--that's  _ Steve _ . Steve blinking at him, Steve rolling toward him, Steve reaching out--

Tony swallows the scream in his throat and scrambles backwards, falling out of bed and hitting his ass and he registers that it hurts, distantly, but he doesn't really bother with that, just scurries back, away from the bed and  _ Steve _ , as fast as he can, and when his still healing wrist and arm twinge in pain, he ignores that too. 

Steve leans over the bed, worry crinkling up his forehead the way it always does when he frowns at Tony, and he hates that he recognizes that worry as  _ his _ , that he missed it. He shiver, cool in the empty room.

"Are you ok?" 

Tony laughs, high and hysterical. "No I'm not fucking ok, what are you  _ doing _ here?" 

That makes Steve freeze, his hands clenching on the sheets, and Tony plunges on. "I know I drank too much last night, but I didn't drink  _ this _ much, I haven't hallucinated since I was on 'shrooms after Mom's first birthday, what is even  _ happening _ ?" 

"You aren't," Steve says, voice sharp and furious and he flinches, back, away from Steve, away from that anger. 

Steve is dangerous when he’s angry.

He realizes, abruptly, how very naked he is and he wants to be sick. He shoves that down and pats around for his boxers, for a shirt, for  _ something.  _

"This--it's Shuri." 

That catches his attention and he stares at Steve, mouth hanging open unattractively. "What?" 

"She gave me tea," Steve says, shortly, and shoves out of the bed. 

The bed that is over-sized and made up with a familiar spread--familiar because it's his. 

Deep wine red and black geometric patterns. Pepper had chosen it, said he couldn't do only black and white in his bedroom, said he needed color. 

But that doesn't make sense, because that bed was in the Tower. 

He glances around as he shoves his feet into a pair of sweats, pulls a shirt over his head.

The room is familiar, if only because he remembers choosing the paint and decor, the rooms he planned and didn't allow Pepper to touch, the rooms  _ he  _ designed for Steve. 

"Why are we in the Tower?" he whispers, his lips dry. 

These are rooms Ultron's attack destroyed, that he'd never bothered to rebuild because the Compound was ready and he was walking away from the Avengers and then--and then. 

He shoves that aside. Blinks at Steve, who is wearing guilt and fury and Tony--

Runs. 

Ignores the shouting behind him, ignores the way every single word spikes panic in his gut, icy panic that wars with hot fury that feels distant and not quite his, and he gets all the way to the kitchen--and draws to an abrupt halt. 

Clint and Natasha are there. Clint is scrambling eggs and humming, off-tune, the way he always did when he wasn't wearing his aids. 

Natasha is laughing. 

Laughing, pressed into the counter as she chops fruit and a dark head is dipped, tucked into her throat, and a metal hand splayed across her belly. 

"Tony," she says, pleased, a grin still painted across her pretty features. "You're up early." 

Bucky Barnes straightens, and he smiles at Tony, lazy and happy and it registers, very distantly, as a good look on the man. "Mornin', boss," he says, and Tony swallows against the vomit rising in his throat. “Stevie up?” 

Tony makes an inarticulate noise in his throat and Nat's eyes narrow, Barnes' expression tips toward concern, something so strange on his face that it makes Tony stumble back a step.

"I--I--" he fumbles for words, but Barnes' is stepping toward him and he bolts, darts into the elevator and almost shouts, "Workshop, FRI." 

There's a pause, and then, "Sir? Are you alright?" 

The voice--that familiar, achingly missed voice, wrapped around a sentence he's heard a thousand times, slams into him, and he hits his knees. 

"J," he chokes. "J--please." 

The elevator drops, so fast his stomach lurches and his AI, his first friend and lost child, says, soothing and worried all at once . "I've contacted Colonel Rhodes, sir." 

~*~ 

He makes it to the ratty couch in his workshop before he goes to pieces completely, a pillow pressed to his mouth to muffle his screams, shaking so hard he's afraid he's going to come apart. 

The Avengers are  _ here _ . Not just Rhodey with his broken body and the smiles that are never accusing but never quite happy. Not just Vision, strange and painful and distant. 

_ All of them. _ Steve in his bed, Clint and Natasha. He wonders, a hysterical laugh in his throat, if Thor is here, if Bruce is. 

Everyone else is and JARVIS is alive and--and  _ Barnes _ is here, smiling, eyes bright and happy and he has no fucking idea what to do with that, what to do in this world. 

He went to bed alone, in a compound haunted by Vision and his shattered best friend, a team that was never his scattered. He went to bed and he was drunk, sure, but not drunk enough that it would explain  _ this _ . 

It's been six weeks since he returned from Siberia, cradled by his frantic, worried baby AI, and almost dead. 

And Rhodey is still at his side--he isn't sure if that support is for his sake or for Rhodey's and he doesn't bother to question it because it’s never mattered--but he was getting used to being alone, to not having a team.

He doesn't know what the hell Wonderland shit he's stumbled into but he wants off the goddamn ride. 

The doors to the lab slide open and he flinches back, before he hears a worried, "Tones?" 

Rhodey skids into sight and--

Tony bursts into tears. 

"Shit, JARVIS wasn't lying. J, are you sure he doesn't need Steve?" Rhodey asks, worried, and Tony almost falls off the couch reaching for Rhodey. 

" _ No _ , please, no--not--please, just--" he's babbling, not making any sense at all, but Rhodey is moving across the room, dropping onto the couch and tugging Tony into his chest, into his lap. 

His lap. No braces, no prosthetic, nothing to assist him. Just Rhodey's strong sturdy legs and familiar lap and Tony fitting there, like he has for so many years. 

His brother's arms are around him, his best friend's voice familiar in his ear, and Tony shivers against him, and cries, silent. Because this world isn't his, this nightmare dreamscape where Steve wakes up next to him, too close, too close, too close. 

But Rhodey is whole and healthy, and that--that's a dream even Tony doesn't dare dream anymore. 

He cries and Rhodey holds him, a low hum in his throat, a familiar lullaby he used to sing to Tony when they were in college and Tony was impossibly young and lonely and Rhodey adopted the little white boy who hid how much of a mess he was behind booze and money and flashy smiles. 

“You gonna tell me?” Rhodey asks, softly, when he finally goes quiet and limp against his chest. “Because, gotta say, Tones, I’m freaking out a little here. You ran from the team. You ran from  _ Steve.”  _

Tony shifts, and touches one of Rhodey’s legs, pinches it, hard enough Rhodey twitches and swats him, irritable. “You can walk,” Tony breathes and Rhodey goes very still. 

Maybe four years ago--before the alien portal above New York, before the Mandarian and the fall of SHIELD--maybe Rhodey would have laughed off such a statement. 

They laugh off a lot less, after seeing the impossible. 

“Tony,” Rhodey says carefully. “What the hell.” 

Tony takes a deep breath. “I went to sleep in a compound in upstate New York in 2016 and when I did--JARVIS was dead, you were...hurt..and Steve had taken most of the team to rescue Barnes after he was framed for murder.” 

Rhodey stares at him, and Tony offers up a thin smile. He doesn’t tell him about Siberia. Not yet. There’s enough to process without adding that. 

“I can see why you freaked out then,” Rhodey says, slowly and then his gaze narrows. “How bad was it, when Steve left?” 

Of course he’d pick up on that. Tony glances away and Rhodey hums a little. displeased. “That bad.” 

“Bad enough,” he says, softly. He glances back at Rhodey who huffs. 

“It’s 2015, buddy. Cap and Nat brought SHIELD down almost a year ago. Barnes came in outta the cold three months back--Clint and Nat’s doing more than Steve’s.” 

“Sokovia?” Tony asks and Rhodey makes a curious face. Apparently they’re not there yet. “Anything else I should know?” 

Rhodey hesitates, and then. “JARVIS, show him.” 

It's surprisingly small, the wedding. A tiny thing, considering. He wore black. Steve wore his dress uniform. Rhodey--

"You gave me away," Tony murmurs, touching the photo. Pepper is crying behind them. 

"Who the hell else has the right to?" Rhodey grumbles, good-natured. "I've been takin' care of your ass since you were thirteen." 

Tony blinks. They're kissing, and the Avengers, their closest friends, are around them. They're dancing on the roof of the tower. Steve is laughing, twirling Nat. Pepper is leaning against Tony, unspeakably lovely in her blue dress. 

They're leaning into each other, intent on each other, and there's a smile on Tony's lips he doesn't recognize. 

"I--I married him," he whispers, touching the holo. 

"About eighteen months back," Rhodey says. "You're real happy with him, Tones." 

He can see that. 

Tony--the Tony that belongs here, that belongs to this Steve--is blissfully happy, happy in a way that he had never quite managed, not even with Pepper. 

"Fuck," he breathes and Rhodey snorts. 

"What're you gonna do?" 

Tony looks at Rhodey, eyes wide. "I have no idea." 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/160239946@N03/49127066448/in/dateposted/)

~*~ 

He waits for Rhodey to retreat before he falls to pieces. 

It's not that he doesn't trust Rhodey--he does. It's only that--Tony’s been healthy and happy here, and this Rhodey doesn't know how messy his best friend can be. 

He crawls into a corner of the lab, wedges him there and tries to breath as panic and fear claws at his gut. 

This lab. These bots--DUM-E and U are watching him--the Tower and the team--none of it is his. 

Even Rhodey isn't  _ his _ , he's another Tony's, a Tony who is happy and fucking  _ married _ . 

He chokes and a hysterical noise slips free. 

"Sir, you are in distress," JARVIS says, and it kicks the panic higher, an animal noise slipping free. "I have called Captain Rogers." 

No. 

_ No _ . 

He wants to scream--wants to run, wants his goddamn suit to put some kind of barrier between him and what's coming, and he tries to remember that this Steve is not his, that the Steve here  _ loves  _ Tony, is married to Tony, would never try to kill him. 

Footsteps come at a dead run, and Steve--god he looks beautiful, beautiful and familiar, just like  _ his _ Steve, the one that was never his at all, and it  _ hurts _ , through the fear screaming at him and panic choking him--skids around the corner, falling to his knees hard enough that even through his panic Tony feels a twinge of concern for the poor man. 

"Tony," he breathes, and his hands are shaking, careful and cautious as they fit around Tony's shoulders, as they pull him, hesitant and strong and unsure, into Steve's lap. 

He's holding Tony like he's fragile, like he's not sure he's  _ allowed _ to hold him, like--

Oh. 

Oh god. 

Oh  _ fuck _ . 

Steve's hand finds his heart and lifts Tony's to rest over his own, an echo of a thousand panic attacks Steve coached him through, after the Battle of New York, and he breathes, matches his breathing to Steve's. 

This is familiar. 

In a world that isn't  _ this _ is. 

Because of fcuking course, in a Wonderland world where nothing is as it should be--his Steve, with all his fury and strength and hatred for Tony, would follow him. 

Of fucking course he would. 

  
  
~*~ 

The bed is warm and Tony's back is a smooth, muscular curve and he wants to reach out and touch it, wants to know that Tony is real and they're both  _ here _ . He chokes back that impulse and clenches his fingers into a fist. 

This isn't right--this room, this bed, Tony--it's not where he was. He can still taste the sweet bitter herbal aftertaste of Shuri's tea, can still feel the lingering heat of Wakanda on his skin. 

But this isn't Wakanda and Tony is  _ here _ and the taste is fading. 

Tony makes a noise and falls out of the bed, and it jerks Steve from his thoughts, makes him shift upright and mumble, "T'ny?" 

It’s sleep slurred and deep and it makes Tony bolt, scrambling to his feet and yanking on pants he finds on the floor. His eyes are too wide, his breathing quick and shallow and Steve sits up, concerned. 

Tony runs. 

It isn't even surprising, and Steve gets almost to the door before a cool voice says, "Captain, might I suggest clothing. Agents Romanoff and Barton are in the common areas."

He looks down at himself, and he isn't sure if it's more startling to find he's naked--he was naked in bed with Tony--or that JARVIS is coming from the ceiling. 

"Clothes," he says, numbly, and reaches for his sweats. 

By the time he reaches the kitchen, Tony has vanished, and he doesn't need to ask JARVIS to know he's gone to the workshop, and he's going to follow--but Bucky is laughing. 

It makes him stop, staring at his best friend leaning back on the counter, shoulders loose and a happy smile on his lips as Natasha-- _ Natasha _ ?--leans into him, feeds him a strawberry and grins when he licks the juice from her fingertips. She murmurs to him, low Russian and Steve makes a noise, almost a whine of distress. 

It draws both of their attention and Bucky shifts away from Natasha the smile falling away. "What's wrong with Tony?" Bucky asks, his tone dipping toward the worried note he'd always had when Steve was busy getting himself into trouble and Steve blinks. 

Bucky never sounded that--concerned--when talking about Tony. Resigned. Guilty. A little bitter, sometimes. But never that worried concerned older brother tightness Steve only ever heard directed at him. 

"I'm going down," Rhodey says and Steve blinks at him, as the Colonel strides past, his face tight. "You comin', Cap?" 

There's a beat of time, while Rhodey and Bucky look at him, expectant, and Steve coughs. "No. Um. Maybe it'd be better for just you." 

"Colonel Rhodes, Sir has requested only you." 

Surprise flickers on Rhodes face for a moment, and then his look dips toward displeasure as he glances back at Steve. 

"We're talking about this," he says darkly, and then he's gone. 

Steve watches the closed elevator doors for a long moment. 

Rhodey is fine. He's walking, treating Steve like a friend, Bucky is  _ laughing _ and kissing Nat and--

A hand, familiar metal and comforting, comes down on the scruff of his neck. squeezing and pulling him close. "C'mon, Stevie. You need to eat and you can explain what the hell is going on between you and your husband." 

Steve almost faints.

~*~

He sits with Bucky and Nat and he knows Bucky is watching him, too sharp eyes noting god only knows what, but he doesn't fall apart. Doesn't do anything but answer their questions and drink his coffee and wonder what the fuck is happening. 

He wants to follow Rhodes downstairs, wants to catch his hands in Tony's and hold him because...

Because of too many reasons. 

He hadn't realized, really, until he saw Tony's curved back and familiar fluffy hair, just how much he'd missed the other man. 

He had Bucky back, but he'd traded on best friend for the other, and he didn't think there was any way to go back from the mess that was Siberia and the Accords. 

He didn't even know that he deserved to go back. 

"Captain," JARVIS says, much later, when Rhodey has come back and vanished to work, breaks the silence, and Steve blinked up at the ceiling. "Sir is having a panic attack."

Steve lurches up and Bucky's hand closes over his wrist. He hasn't called Steve on the lies he can so clearly see on Steve's face, but he thinks that now, with Nat gone to shower and JARVIS summoning him, his reprieve is over.

"Do you remember what I told you, when you proposed to him?" Bucky asks, softly. 

Steve stares and Bucky nods, like his silence has confirmed something for him. "I'll kill you, Stevie. You hurt that man--I'll use every single skill HYDRA gave me to make you regret it. No one is going to hurt him again, not even you, if I can prevent it." 

Steve stares at his best friend, his heart thundering and Bucky nods, pleased his message is clearly sinking in. "Go on then. Take care of him." 

He releases Steve and Steve does as he's told. 

He goes. 

He doesn't quite panic in the elevator. This--Bucky smiling and the team whole and in the Tower, it's too much like everything he  _ wants _ to panic. But he stands there, and whispers, quitely, "What the fuck. Shuri, what the actual fuck." 

There's a spike of panic, bright white hot sparks, that makes his stomach turn, and he forces himself to breath through it, to not focus on Bucky's quiet warning or the wrong of all this rightness, just on what he's about to walk into. 

Tony isn't immediately visible when he walks into the lab, but DUM-E is leaning over something, and Steve beelines for it, scooping Tony up. There's a terrible wheezing noise to his breathing that's heart-breakingly familiar, even if he hasn't heard it since before the mess with Ultron. 

Tony stopped letting Steve see  _ him _ , after that. Steve can't even blame him much. 

"C'mon, Tones," he murmurs, soothing a hand down his back while the other fits over his heart, where his arc reactor should sit, but doesn't, and it hurts, the absence of it. "Breath with me, honey." Tony's hand flattens over his chest, feeling his heartbeat and his breathing and Steve--

Steve talks. 

About the room and the projects circling overhead, about the bots and the weather and the gray in Tony's hair that is new. He talks about a book he's reading and a show he watched and everything that doesn't matter at all, because Tony was never good at listing things to ground himself, was never good at being coaxed out of his attacks--he just needed to be surrounded and touched. But listening to Steve babble had always worked to draw him out faster--almost like he needed the panic attack to end so he could argue with Steve about Star Wars. 

He doesn't think that's how it's going to go today. 

Eventually, Tony's breathing slows, his heartbeat going steady and strong against Steve's palm, and he twitches, almost pulling away. 

Steve's arms tighten around him, just a little, just enough they both feel it before he forces himself to release Tony. 

He shifts, off Steve's lap, to tip onto the couch, but he stays close, and he says, softly, "Thanks." 

"You don't have to thank me for taking care of you," Steve says, and Tony gives him a look, all disbelief and distrust. 

It stings. 

It's not fair to be hurt by it--he  _ knows _ he fucked up, that Tony's wariness is earned. 

It still stings. 

"You're mine, aren't you," Steve says. "The Tony from my world, not the one who belongs here." 

"Well, sugar, we sure as hell never got married but Rhodey just showed me pictures of some idiots who did, so yeah--I'm just as new here as you are." 

Married. 

Oh gods, they were  _ married _ . 

"What the hell happened?" Tony says, either not seeing or not bringing up Steve's panic. "I was sleeping--" 

"The Princess happened. Shuri--she--" he hesitates and Tony's eyes narrow. "She did a medical procedure. Afterwards, I was shaken up. She took me aside, gave me some tea. That's the last thing I remember." 

"Medical procedure," Tony says, tapping his fingers on his chest, impatiently. "I take it the words are still in Terminator's head, and she's still fabricating the new arm--did she put him on ice?" 

Steve doesn't even bother asking how Tony knows that. He stopped trying to understand the leaps his mind made years ago. 

"Yeah." 

Tony nods, "Safest, really. She'll figure it out and he won't hurt anyone--won't be used to hurt anyone--in the meantime. It's what I'd do." 

"It's what he wanted," Steve says, his voice empty. 

"And you hated it." 

His lips tighten and he looks away. He doesn't want to have this conversation, not with Tony of all people. Tony huffs and says, "Fine. A problem for another day and frankly, another person. What your boyfriend chooses to do isn't my concern." 

Steve almost corrects him, almost tells him about Sam, but figures--it's not his business to share, and not important here, really. "What do we do?" he asks, and Tony smiles, thinly. 

"That is the question isn't it. Do you think you can fake being married to me? Because I think we’re stuck in Wonderland." 

  
~*~ 

The bots are quiet, watching him and Steve. 

Steve hasn't said anything since Tony asked if he could fake being married. He doesn't know what's going on in his head--he stopped trying to read Steve Rogers right around the time Bucky Barnes came back from the dead. 

He shifts a little, his hands shaking. It's been a long time since he had a panic attack and two in the space of two hours left him shakey, jittery and unable to settle. A tiny part of him wants to curl back in Steve's arms, where he'd rested as Steve eased him through that last panic attack, and he hates himself for wanting that as much as he does. 

"Rhodey came down and talked to me--I told him." Tony says, when the silence stretches too long. 

"Do you think that's smart?" Steve asks, and Tony fights the urge to bristle and defend himself. "I don't--the team is happy, Tony. We shouldn't fuck that up." 

"I'm not trying to fuck anything up," Tony says. "I'm trying to survive. Apparently this Wonderland a few years behind us--they haven't dealt with Ultron." 

"Bucky came in out of the cold without the Accords then," Steve murmurs. Tony tenses and Steve flicks a look at him. "He likes you," he says, carefully. 

Tony goes still, and Steve adds, "He threatened me. Gave me a real nice shovel talk--I don't think Rhodey could do any better. Whatever you did here, Buck trusts you." 

Tony doesn't answer. Can't. He has no fucking clue what to even say. He shoves the fear swirling in his gut down, down far enough he can only feel it in the sick twisting of his belly and says. "What do you want to do?" 

"I don't think we have a lot of choice, do we? We're here, until whatever Shuri did wears off or--" he frowns and Tony's gaze narrows. 

"What?" 

"I think--what if she's trying to teach me something?" 

"If she is, she needs to keep her object lessons from involving innocent bystanders," Tony grumbles. 

Steve hides his smile, and shrugs. "We just gotta power through." 

Tony blinks at him. He looks likes he actually means that. "Steve--we--do you remember what the hell happened last time we were in the same room? We destroyed a nuclear missile silo. We almost killed each other." 

Steve winces. 

"You can't  _ honestly  _ think we can just ignore that." 

"Do you have a better idea? This team doesn't deserve our shit, Tony," Steve snaps, and Tony stumbles back a step before his spine goes stiff and his lips thin.

"Fine. I want a line to Wakanda within the hour, though. We're not just riding this shit out, Cap. I want to go  _ home _ ." 

Steve opens his mouth to respond, but Tony is already moving, stalking away. 

~*~ 

He gets to the penthouse--cold, metallic and white and beautifully impersonal, and clearly abandoned, before he let the fear loose. 

His hands are shaking so badly he can't even hold his coffee and he feels a whimper crawling up his throat, and he tries, he  _ tries _ to choke it back, but it's there, it's so sharp and clawing at his insides. 

He's stuck here. 

He's stuck here, and he didn't even get a choice, he was dragged here by a princess he's never met, and  _ Steve _ is here, and he's the only one that knows--he presses a hand to his mouth, chokes back the scream and the fear and a moan, low and animal terror, breaks through, echoes off the tile, and he shudders. 

He can't do it. 

Faking happy is easy, that's what he's been doing since he was old enough to stand up in front of cameras. It's  _ Steve _ . 

He  _ can't  _ pretend to love him. 

Standing next to him made terror curl in his gut, made him want to bolt, and scream, to hide, to lash out before he can be hurt. 

He can't fake trusting him, much less being comfortable enough to let Steve  _ touch _ him. 

He can feel panic prickling at his fingertips, a cold that makes him shive and makes his breath go short and hard and he forces himself to breath deep, forces himself to swallow the panic. 

"Sir? You are being requested on the main floor." 

"Who wants me, J?" Tony rasps. It's so strange, painfully good, to hear his familiar voice. 

"Seg Barnes has requested your assistance with Captain Rogers, Sir." 

Tony jerks upright. Because he might be afraid of Steve, he might not trust him, he might hate  _ all _ of this--But Steve is his, the only thing that is in this Wonderland nightmare, and he says, without really thinking, "I'm on my way." 

~*~ 

Steve can't breath. 

There's a hot band around his chest, tightening, and he feels like he did a lifetime ago, when Bucky leaned over him in their cold-water flat and coached him to breath. 

He  _ can't _ . 

All he can feel is panic, hot and choking, and fear, so thick it makes him want to puke. 

He can hear, very distantly, as though through water, the sound of someone talking, the brusque voice that is achingly familiar, and calloused hands are on his cheeks, and there's determination in Tony's eyes, and fear too. 

It echoes in his gut but he can see Tony, and the panic and fear are fading. They feel almost distant, now--locked away behind a wall. 

He inhales, a ragged draw of breath and Tony says, "Better?" 

He hums his assent and Tony nods. Straightens up. 

"What the fuck was that?" Bucky asks, his voice sharp and demanding. 

"Panic attack, Buckaroo," Tony says, easily. "You've seen them before." 

"Yeah, but not from Steve--that looked like  _ you _ ." 

There's a spike of indignation and Steve says, "Hey!" 

Tony pauses. Looks at him and it rolls over him, a slow wave of dread. "Shit," he says. 

~*~ 

Steve is going to kill a princess. 

If he doesn't--he's damn sure that Tony will. There's a barely constrained fury boiling molton hot in his chest that doesn't feel like his, but Tony is smiling, a vicious thing, at the tiny Wakandan princess. 

"Does that seem like something you could do?" he asks. 

Shuri blinks. Fair. In this Wonderland world, Ultron hasn't even happened. She has no reason to think they'd know anything about her or her country. 

"I don't know what you think you know about Wakanda--" 

"Cut the shit, Princess," Tony snaps and at her side, a Dora Milaje stirs, fury flickering in her otherwise blank face. "You're the technological brilliance behind the most technologically savvy nation in the world. You're a genius and Wakanda has enough mystic shit--Black Panther sure as hell isn't tech--to pull off something like this. We're not asking you to step out of the shadow. But you--a version of you--did this. Fix it." 

Her eyes are very cold. "Why would I do this?" 

"Because I'm your friend," Steve says. "I think--you wanted to help. You helped my best friend." 

"Barnes," she says, softly. "Your Barnes is whole--as whole as he can be. The one from your world was not?" 

He presses his lips together and shakes his head. 

Shuri sighs and breathes a curse under her breath. "Brother will be  _ so  _ mad," she mumbles. Then straightens. "I'll see what I can do. It might take some time." 

"And while we wait?" Tony says, sharply. 

Shuri shrugs. "Try not to break the world too badly." 

She clicks away before Tony can snarl at her. 

"I haven't had a headache since 1943," Steve says, and Tony flicks a look at him. There's a hint of guilt in dark eyes and he takes a breath. 

The blinding orange fireworks of fury and fear ease up a little--and then they're gone completely. 

Tony doesn't look any different. He frowns down at his phone while Steve stares at him and he blurts out, "How do you do that?" 

Tony shrugs. Doesn't even bother to misunderstand the question. "Years of repression and too much time in front of cameras. It's a survival skill, Cap." 

"But--" Steve starts and Tony smiles, thin and unhappy. 

"Not everyone can be well adjusted and wear their heart on their sleeve, Steve. It's not important. Besides--if we want to survive this, we're gonna keep our emotions to ourselves." 

"Do you think we can?" Steve asks, and Tony's lips compress. 

He doesn't answer. 

~*~

They don’t tell the team. 

Steve says it would be cruel. 

Tony thinks it’d be messy. 

The truth is they’re both right. 

So they don’t tell the team. Which means--the team treats them like their Wonderland counterparts. 

It's painful, if only because it's what Tony's missed for months--since the civil war. Since Ultron--nothing was ever the same, after Ultron. 

Natasha is in the kitchen, baking and humming and flashing a smile that doesn't feel sharp and threatening. 

Bruce is in the lab, working on the Cradle with Helen Cho, and there's a part of him that says he should stop them, but Steve shakes his head, his lips pressed into a thin line. 

Thor and Clint argue over movies and Mario Kart and maybe best of all--JARVIS is a clear crisp, sarcastic voice over all of it. 

It's like he's stepped back in time, except--it's better than stepping back in time. 

It's everything he wanted for his team, when he offered them rooms in the Tower, when he tried to make the team something more than just a group of dysfunctional superheroes--when he fought in the wake of New York and Coulson, to make them a family. 

But Steve went on his wander around America, Clint vanished with Natasha and his grief, Thor went to Asgard and Tony--Tony went to his lonely house in Malibu when he realized it was only him and Bruce and Bruce had one foot out the door. 

They weren't a family--they were barely friends. He just hadn't realized it, hadn't forced himself to acknowledge it, until the Civil War and Bucky. 

Which--of all the many differences between their worlds--Bucky Barnes ranked high. 

"You eat yet, boss?" Bucky asks, and Tony bites back his shriek. There’s a pulse of warm concern in the back of his mind, the part of him where Steve’s emotions have taken up residence, and he shoves it aside, struggling to get his heartbeat back to normal. 

The assassin is standing a few feet away, holding a plate with fruit and a sandwich. He's got a fresh cup of coffee and a smirk, and Tony wants to hit him in the face. 

He isn't allowed to. 

This Bucky doesn't hate Tony--hasn't tried to kill him in a deserted missile silo. 

He hasn't blown the man's arm off. 

"What are you doing down here?" he grumbles, turning back to the suit he's working on--his other self is about ten suits back and that just won't stand. Steve and his judgmental face will just have to deal with it. A spike of exasperation tells him just what feels about  _ that.  _ Tony thinks very smugly in his general direction. 

"You haven't eaten," Barnes says patiently and Tony blinks at him. An expression, curious and knowing and a little sad, crosses his face. "You and Steve gonna tell us what's goin' on with you?" 

"Nope," Tony says, popping the P obnoxiously, and taking the coffee Barnes offers. 

Barnes quiet for a long time and then, "You really didn't like me, did you." 

Tony stills. Blinks at Barnes, who shrugs. "You--you're not ours. You and Steve. Haven't been for a few days. And I figure--you aren't gonna hurt us. You're still Tony and Steve--not hurting us is in your DNA. And I won't let you hurt the team. But--wherever you came from, you didn't like me much, there." 

Tony swallows hard, and something like grief crosses Barnes' face. "Fair enough, I supposed. I always thought it was kinda crazy for you to forgive me." 

"I forgave you," Tony blurts and Bucky’s lips tighten, a hurt little noise breaking free. 

"You--you saved me. Steve couldn't find me. You--you helped Tasha bring me home. And then you fixed me."

Tony shrugs. “It’s what I do. Fix things. Usually after I break them.” 

Barnes blinks at him, eyes bright and shining. "You gave me a home and you gave me Stevie and Tasha. And I always knew you shouldn't give me anything but a clean death, maybe, if I was lucky. My Tony always had a bigger heart than was safe." 

Tony stares at Bucky for a long time, and then, "You almost killed me. Although, to be fair, I was trying my damndest to kill you and Steve at the time." 

Bucky flinches and looks away. Deep in his head, guilt swamps him, so thick it makes his stomach turn.

"It was--he didn't tell me. About--he found you. But it took about two years. And he didn't tell me," Tony says, lamely. "A guy--Zemo, real bastard, you should probably be careful--he showed me footage. Of the car accident." 

"Fuck," Barnes breathes and Tony almost laughs. It's got enough of a hysterical edge that he swallows it down, but not before Steve’s concern strokes over him, hesitant and careful. "Can't say I blame you for tryin' to kill me, boss." 

Tony tilts his head and says, "Why do you call him that?" 

A flush spreads over Bucky's cheeks, something that startles Tony--he wasn't aware the Winter Soldier  _ could _ blush. 

"When I came in--I needed orders still. I was still more Asset than man, and I needed orders." He shrugs, smiles and it's not a haunted smile, it's almost peaceful. "You gave them to me." 

Tony stares at this man who trusted him that much, who still does, and for the first time--he wants to stay. 

"I don't hate you," he says, when Barnes turns to leave. "I--I was angry. I still am. But I don't hate you. I hate what they made you do." 

Barnes nods and says, "Eat your lunch, boss." 

And then he goes. 

Tony doesn’t know if the conflicted unease in his belly is his or Steve’s.

~*~ 

There is a part of this crazy wonderland that  _ doesn't  _ bother Tony. 

He goes to the penthouse, locks himself in his bedroom that feels like someone else's and curls up in the middle of the bed. 

He  _ knows _ what will happen, when he speaks. But his voice still shakes, when he says, "Hey, JARVIS?" 

"Sir?" the AI says, immediately, his voice cool and concerned, the way JARVIS always was--both the one he loved first and the AI he created after. 

"Will you read to me?" he asks, softly. It's not something he's asked for in years, since even before Ultron and JARVIS died--he stopped asking after college. Rhodey read to him, sometimes, when they passed out in Tony's bed. It was the best lullaby he knew, the one that never failed to remind him of his childhood and the first person to love him and the safety he felt there, wrapped up in his warm blankets and JARVIS' protective gaze. 

"Of course, Sir," the AI says, softly. 

He snuggles into his blankets and pillows that smell a little bit wrong, and closes his eyes. 

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he doesn’t feel Steve’s happiness, a warm coal of contentment in his brain.

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend this is his world. 

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend it's his tower, his bed, his JARVIS. 

He closes his eyes and JARVIS begins reading, " _ In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy... _ " 

~*~ 

Steve finds him there, later. He's curled in the blankets and sleeping, and there's something so close to peaceful on his face that Steve almost doesn't want to disturb him. 

He watches for a long moment, and then, "How long ago did we get married, JARVIS?" 

"The second anniversary of Sir's wedding is in four months." 

He closes his eyes. Four months--and this, this is--he exhales. "How?" 

JARVIS is silent, long enough that Steve thinks the AI won't respond, and he shouldn't be able to ignore direct inquiries like that--amazing as the AI is, he is still a program, coding and protocols. Tony stirs, making a face in his sleep and Steve breathes through the irritation, lets his fingers drift through his hair.

"Sir invited you to move into the Tower after the Battle of New York." 

That adds up--Tony had done the same. 

"You accepted his offer. You and Sir became...close." 

And that's where the timeline diverges. 

He never did move into Tony's gilded tower in their world. Not until a few months before Ultron, and after---after everything was so broken, and Tony was so scared and Steve--he didn't trust Tony, didn't chase him when the other man retreated. 

He closes his eyes. "Yeah. Ok." 

"Sir loves you," JARVIS says, softly, and his lips quirk. He doesn't answer though. There's nothing to say. There’s only guilt and longing, sitting heavy in his chest.

He sits on the couch and watches his Tony sleeping, and wonders how he managed to screw things up so badly that this world--a world where they were happy and their team was whole--was so fucking unrecognizable. 

His fingers itch to sketch. It's a strange sensation--he hasn't sketched since before the ice. He'd missed it, after he woke up--but it felt like something that belonged to someone else, a different life. He couldn't imagine drawing anything now, even if sometimes he felt the phantom ache of missing it. 

"Your eye," Tony rasps, dragging him from his thoughts. There’s a sparkle of curiosity in his head that isn’t his, a firework of emotion that he’d miss if he blinked, and Steve thinks that is the most fitting thing ever. 

Steve shrugs at him, and his eyes throbs, as if reminded. He smiles, and it's tight. Amused and a little bit bitter. "Buck took exception to how I treated you, back home." 

Tony snorts, and sits up, the blanket's pooling around his hips and revealing a rumpled, dirty t shirt. "He  _ punched _ you? Manchurian Candidate. Punched  _ you _ ."

"It's not that shocking," Steve says, dryly. "I know you saw the footage from DC--punching me was pretty much all he did, there." 

"That was the Winter Soldier. Not Bucky," Tony says, absently, and Steve blinks, startled. A tinkle of embarrassed neon sparks skitter through his mind, there and gone. 

He wasn't sure Tony would ever understand the difference. Then Tony smiles, wide and shit-eating. "I landed in a world where Bucky Barnes will punch  _ you _ for hurting my feelings. That's the best fucking thing I've heard since I woke up in your bed." 

~*~

Despite the fact that telling anyone who they are could upset a delicate and healthy team dynamic, Tony can't deny that Rhodey and Barnes knowing helps. Rhodey sticks close, and he serves as a buffer between Tony and Steve on days when Tony is rubbed raw, too many emotions and too little trust serving to making his paranoia spike, when the constant barrage from America’s Most Earnest Man threatens to drive him to his knees. 

Then, when the team is curious and concerned, Rhodey steps between them and Tony, distracts them with empty words that gives Tony just enough time to retreat, and Rhodey takes his place at Tony's side, comfortable even here in a world where nothing is. 

Rhodey has been the shield between him and the world since Tony was at MIT, and it's natural for him to be there now. 

Barnes watches him, but as the days slip by and nothing changes, he settles in at a distance and waits. He seems content to observe, to draw Steve's attention when Tony looks overwhelmed, and not push too much of his own attention on Tony. 

It's tolerable, and as the days turn into a week and then two, Tony thinks--having Rhodey and Barnes is all that's keeping him and Steve sane. 

"We just have to wait until Shuri figures out how to send us home," Steve says. He's grumbling, his displeasure a hot angry buzz at the back of Tony’s skull, scrunched on the too small bedroom couch because neither of them could explain away separate bedrooms and Tony spent enough nights in the workshop that Clint commented on it, and Natasha's eyes narrowed in concern. 

"Right, but how long?" Tony says. "I have a life at home." 

Steve doesn't snap at him, doesn't protest that they both do.

He can't. Not really. 

"I don't want to be here either," Steve says, sharply. 

Tony snorts, and Steve's forehead creases as he scowls across the room to where Tony is sprawled across his bed. The angry buzz shifts to indignant reproach. "What the--"

The assemble alarm blares, and Tony breathes a  _ "thank fuck, _ " that he can feel echoed in Steve’s emotions before he's scrambling out bed and almost crashing into Steve as they both reach the door. 

"JARVIS--"

"Your suit is in the spare room, Captain. Sir, if you'll direct yourself to the landing pad," the AI says smoothly and Tony grins, sprinting to the private landing pad he put into the penthouse for his and Rhodey's use. The suit is gleaming, red and gold and welcoming and he lets it wrap around him. For a moment, just a moment--he feels like he's home. 

He's always felt like he's right where he belongs, when he's in the suit. 

Then JARVIS comes across the HUD and comms and the sense of displacement, of  _ wrong _ , echoes through him. It bounces off Steve, and doubles back, a feedback loop of unease that makes him swallow hard. 

He never thought JARVIS would cause him to feel out of place. 

"Widow," Captain America says and Tony can hear him running down the stairs, and he shoves his baggage aside as the the window panel slides open. "Give me the situation." 

There's a smirk in Tasha's voice that makes Tony grin in answer. "Doom came out to play. We've got robot dinosaurs in the Park." 

Tony bursts out laughing at that, and Rhodey's voice, desert dry, says from his right, from where Rhodey belongs, "You aren't taking one home, Tones." 

“Spoil sport,” Tony pouts and Rhodey sighs, long suffering. 

“Chatter,” Cap says, but there’s a looseness in his voice, a bright fierce joyful heat to his emotions. 

He needed this too. 

“Ironman, War Machine--secure the perimeter. Get a read on those bots, see what we can use to bring them down. Hawkeye, I want you clearing civilians out and if you get a shot at Doom--” 

“Got it,” Barton says. 

“Widow, Soldier--” 

“Destroy?” 

“With extreme prejudice,” Winter says, and he sounds different than anything Tony’s ever heard from him. 

Empty, but not. 

Amused and savage and human. 

Huh. Interesting. Wonderland Winter was functional. He wonders what that means for  _ their  _ Winter.

He knows there's a difference in the team--sees it in the way Natasha leans against him and the way the rest of the team spars, the way they're a  _ team _ , and a  _ family _ . 

It had to translate to the field. 

It does. 

It's not like at home, where they fight smooth and easy, not really pushing into each other's space--covering each other without getting in each other's way. 

This though--they fight  _ with _ each other, playing off each other's style, fighting together. It's a liquid sort of deadly dance he's never seen before, not since he was fighting with Rhodey in bar fights at MIT--and even that, it's nothing like watching Winter and the Widow fighting together, the way they move together and around each other, protecting each other's flanks and killing at the same time. Hawkeye and the Hulk shift around each other, bringing down bots with a deadly efficiency. 

"Ironman," Cap says, sharp, and it pulls Tony's attention from watching the team to take stock of the bots. "What are we facing?" 

"Bots aren't high tech--looks like if you go for the neck joint, you'll get the power source." 

He swings closer and a bot that looks like an actual velociraptor screams at him. The HUD shifts through the schematics, and he swears, furious. Concern spikes from Steve before he says, "They're explosive though." 

Winter hisses out a curse and Cap huffs. "Can we disarm them?" 

"Not--" Tony pauses and then, "I need five minutes." 

"Tony," Steve starts, the concern blooming, a suffocating blanket. Tony shoves at him in the mental space they share, furious red firesparks meeting hot concern, and Steve growls across the comms. 

"Widow and I will cover you," Winter says, cutting him off. "Do what you need." 

"Winter," Cap snarls and Tony hears the clang of metal on metal. He's throwing his shield, already. Not a good sign. "Don't you think we should  _ know _ what the plan is?" 

"No," Winter says, simple and without explanation, and a curl of heat and comfort at being protected and  _ trusted _ , something he hasn't felt in too long from his team.

"Tones," Rhodey prompts, sounding close in his ear and he shakes the feeling, and goes to work on the T-Rex rampaging through the park. 

"J, talk to me, buddy." 


	2. Chapter 2

The mission ends and it's not easy, but it's not the worst they've faced, together. It's strange, but it's almost like fighting with the Commandos again, a familiar ease that he's missed. There’s an ache in his bones that’s familiar and welcome, and a bright white satisfaction from Tony that’s sweet as honey.

Tony handles the press when they've brought all the bots down while the rest of the team monitors clean up. The Iron Legion is flitting through the wreckage of metal and teeth, flying back to the tower as quick as they scoop up the gathered refuse, and for a moment, standing in the Park with the team around him and the Legion filling up the sky, he thinks he's back, two years and a lifetime ago. 

And he's  _ happy _ . 

That thought is--it shocks him.

He could be  _ happy  _ here. 

"Stark's gonna lock himself away for a week with this shit," Winter grumbles, kicking at one of the bots. There's a petulance in his tone that doesn't sit quite right--like Tony's absence actually bothers him. 

That--that still doesn't feel right. 

He doesn't know what to do with a team that adores Tony, that openly seeks him out, that expects the same of him. 

It's strange--because his team, it never felt like this. 

Like a family. 

He wonders how much of that was his fault, for leaving. For pushing Tony away and never trusting him. 

Rhodey lands, heavy and smelling of metal and gunpowder. He shouldn't--the suit is powered by the arc reactor and repulsor tech, no gunpowder ever came close to it--but it always smells of gunpowder, a scent that carries over here as well as home. "We're headed back." 

Steve nods, and Rhodey steps into his space, "The team--they'll expect you both to come to post mission." 

He slants a look at Rhodey. "What do you mean?" 

"Dinner. Movies. The team spends the night together--it helps everyone, keeps us connected and grounded." 

"Tony doesn't go to the workshop?" Steve asks. "He won't want to work on the bots?" 

"Sure," Rhodey says, agreeably. "But that'll be tomorrow. Tonight he'll eat with the team and watch a movie and let everyone reassure themselves that we came out the other side whole." 

Steve stares and Rhodey shrugs. "He didn't like it at first--now it's his favorite part of missions. And it's good for him--I think the team does it more for him than anyone else, if we're honest. Make sure to tell him." 

Steve nods, and Rhodey claps him on the shoulder, a friendly gesture that still stings because serum or no, the suit packs a helluva a punch, and then rockets into the sky, chasing Tony's Ironman. 

They look, almost, playful, like something he might have seen if he'd seen them on campus at MIT thirty years ago, and he swallows against the pang of loneliness and longing. Tony’s happiness brushes up against his own longing, a soothing balm that makes the ache in his heart match the one in his bones.

"C'mon," Tasha says, slinging an arm around his waist. Winter--because that is still very much the Winter Soldier, his best friend still lurking in the shadows of the assassin's eyes--watches, and his smile is small and pleased as Steve allows himself to be led from the battlefield. 

~*~ 

There's pizza. 

"Barton," Bruce groans. "I thought we said--"

"My turn to choose!" Clint shouts, gleeful, from his perch on the top of the fridge.

Green flickers briefly in Bruce’s eyes before Tony nudges up against him, reaches across him to steal a breadstick. “Are these the garlic knots from Angela’s.” 

There’s a hiccup in conversation, and then Bucky says, easily, “Where the fuck else would Barton get pizza, boss?” 

Tony sticks his tongue out at Bucky and takes the plate Rhodey shoves at him before sliding into the chair next to Steve. He doesn’t mention that they haven’t had Angela’s in three years because the place closed and never reopened after the Fantastic Four took it out while fighting the Silver Surfer. 

His shoulders and ribs ache, the tired sore feeling that came from using the suit and battle but there's a satisfaction to the feeling, too. They all walked away clean--no one was hurt today, and there's a pile of metal and coding in his workshop waiting for him to rip it apart and find out all it's secrets. 

Later. 

Steve slides a slice of alfredo pizza with bell pepper on his plate while he answers a question from Natasha, and Tony swallows against the burn in his throat and the itch in his eyes and ignores the twist of cool questioning concern from Steve that burrows under his skin and sits there, a icy little shard he wants to curl around.

Later--the work will wait until later. For now, he's here, sandwiched between Cap and Bruce and his team all around him, and he feels safe. 

Safer than he has in years. 

He nibbles at his pizza and shoves the urge to run away and basks in the sense of family. 

~*~ 

Natasha makes popcorn. "You realize we just ate fourteen pizzas," Tony says, dryly. Because eight people--even if two were super soldiers and one was a god--tearing through fourteen pizzas shouldn't leave much in the way of room for munchies. 

"Shut up, Stark," she says, gentle and he holds his hands up, acquiescing. The team is migrating to the couches, Thor sprawled across a pile of pillows and blankets that Bruce carried from his rooms. Bruce smiles at him and snuggles into his side, and Thor rumbles happily tugging the small scientist close and resting his giant head on Bruce's. 

"What--" 

"Don't," Bucky murmurs, brushing past him to pull beer from the fridge. "We don't talk about it or Bruce gets shy. And Thor sulks." 

Tony blinks. 

Blinks again. 

Wonderland, he decides, not for the first time, is  _ weird _ . Steve snorts, amusement rippling between them.

He takes a corner of the big leather couch, and Steve sprawls across the other side of it, his feet stretched out and Tony arches an eyebrow at Steve, but doesn't argue. Not with the whole team scattered around him. Not with the sleepy contentment he’s been getting from Steve all night. 

"What are we watching tonight?" 

"Terminator," Barton says, gleeful and Natasha smacks him with a bowl of popcorn. 

"You picked dinner. It's Bruce's turn to choose the movie." 

They settle on a romcom and Tony watches the team more than the movie as it begins. Tasha and Clint are curled up like puppies in the love seat, Bucky at their feet, Tasha's fingers drifting through his hair. Rhodey is half asleep already in the oversized chair, and Tony knows he'll be snoring before the opening credits have finished. Bruce has carefully threaded his fingers with Thor's, a big brawny arm braced around him and resting against his heart. Thor's watching the little scientist, his expression gentle and warm. 

A tug on his foot draw his attention about ten minutes into the movie and he looks at Steve.

Steve who is watching him, intent and curious, like he's seen the way Tony watches the team. Steve, whose warm contentment has been wrapping around him for hours, and has heated into a happiness so pure it makes Tony’s breath catch. 

It’s a happiness edged with something Tony can’t look at, not really, and Steve’s gentle as he drifts there, deep in Tony’s mind. Not pushing. 

Not backing away, either. 

Tony gives a weak smile and looks away, and the tug comes again, mental and physical, and Tony huffs. Steve smiles, draws him down the couch. Steve opens his arms, and Bucky's gaze flicks to them, just for a moment, enough for him to know the team--some of them, anyway--is watching. 

He swallows his sigh and shifts, scooching around until he's leaning against Steve, stretched out along his side, their legs twined together, and Steve's arm a heavy band around his waist. 

It's--it's weird. 

It's weird and uncomfortable, an intimacy that he doesn't deserve or want, an intimacy Steve hasn't earned. Because this domestic little wonderland--it's not their world. 

The Steve from this world would never hurt Tony--it's something he struggles to understand but after two weeks here and around the team, he does  _ know _ that. 

But the Steve from this world isn't the one holding him now. The Steve holding him now hurt him--almost killed him--broke his goddamn heart. 

And there's the truth. 

The one that he didn't want to admit to Rhodey, the one he refused to admit even to himself. 

Steve didn't just betray him--that would have been enough but it wasn't where things ended. 

Steve broke his heart. 

There’s a bitter taste on his tongue, and grief so thick it’s choking in his mind and he isn’t sure if it’s his, or Steve’s, or both. 

He thinks, probably, both. He takes a shuddering breath and reaches for the walls, the ones he puts between him and the world, the ones he can use to keep Steve from feeling the worst of it. 

But--

"Relax, shellhead," Steve breathes into his ear, and Tony--Tony knows that name. 

Knows that here, it means safety and love and affection. Knows that even in their own world, Steve only ever called him that when he was happy. 

He knows that name, and it cracks him open, hearing it now. Splits his walls in two and spills his grief, his loneliness and  _ hurt _ wide open, messy bright green in his head where it can get all over Steve, and he gasps, almost soundless, into Steve’s chest. That bright hot corner of his mind shivers, and then--it pushes out. 

Slips into the dark choking grief. 

Wraps around him, and takes some of the hurt into himself, leaves a little bit of shiny warmth and wind bitten regret behind. Tony blinks back tears and curls deeper into himself. 

Steve hums softly, and his hands are gentle on Tony as he shifts him, moves him carefully so they're both resting against each other, Tony cradled by Steve's big body, their legs twisted together, Tony's head resting on Steve's broad arm. His hand, big and softer than it has any right to be, smoothes down Tony's side, closes over his waist, strokes circles over the thin material of his band t-shirt. 

"Is this ok," Steve breathes, the words brushing against the shell of his ear, and Tony shivers, a full body shudder against Steve that's impossible to miss. Steve goes still, and Tony nods, a rapid little head bobble that keeps Steve from rolling away, giving him room that he desperately wants and hates. The dark bright give and take of their emotions ebb into something slower, something warmer and sweeter. 

The hand on his waist squeezes, gentle strength. Soft fingertips brush against his skin, a tantalizing, teasing warmth that he wants more of, that makes his heart pound. 

Arousal and terror dance along his skin, fill up his mouth and his heart and he doesn't know which is right, which he should believe, which he should run from. 

He doesn’t know which is his and which is Steve’s and what is Wonderland.

He lays there, in Steve's arms, and doesn't run. The movie plays, the soft glow of the TV brightening the sleeping Rhodey and the happy sleepy spies, Thor and Bruce carefully tangled together on the floor, and Bucky. 

Bucky whose eyes are sharp and bright and assessing and safe. 

He feels safe. 

He feels safe and he loves that feeling. 

He feels safe and it hurts because he knows--he  _ knows _ that he isn't. 

For the space of a movie he doesn't see, couldn't say later what it was about--he lets himself bask in the lie. 

  
  


~*~

He wakes with a scream in his throat, panic sharp on his tongue and a spike in his mind. 

He's in his bedroom, and it's dark, dark and still the way Siberia was, and he screams as a hand lands on his shoulder, slapping it away and reaching for his gauntlet, for something,  _ anything _ to protect himself with, and--

"Tony!" 

That voice.

He blinks. 

That voice is  _ dangerous. _

"Lights, J," the disembodied voice snaps and the lights come up, illuminating the dark bedroom and Steve's concerned face, drawn in a familiar frown.

Tony fires the repulsor without thinking. 

It spins Steve across the room, slams him into the wall with a bone rattling clatter, and he crumples, and Tony can breath.

The nightmare is starting to recede, the icy claws of the dark bunker and the pain in his chest loosening, and seeing Steve crumpled in his flannel pajama bottoms is---

It tugs a visceral satisfaction from him, something he hates himself for, but he shoves through it. And under that satisfaction is a sharp bright hot  _ pain _ that makes his stomach turn.

"Don't touch people waking up from nightmares," he rasps, "Didn't Barnes teach you anything?" 

Steve groans, a pitiful noise and he wants to hit him again, almost as much as he wants to go to him and help him from the ground. 

"Sir, the team is asking for entrance," JARVIS intones. 

Tony's heart pounds. There's no way to explain this, and--

Tony scrambles up. He darts past Steve, into the depths of his closet, where an elevator is tucked away. A security measure as much as anything else, but right now--"Workshop, J."

The tiny elevator whisks him down, and Tony closes his eyes, ignoring the pulsing worry and hurt from Steve. "Lock it down. No one gets in." 

"Sir," JARVIS begins. 

"Alpha Zero Six Nine--Initiate Phoenix protocol." 

The AI doesn't respond--but the silence is a heavy, judgmental thing. That's fine. JARVIS can be as judgmental as he wants to be. Right now--right now, the team is finding Steve on the floor with a repulsor burn in his chest, and there's no way to explain that. 

The problem is this: 

He's beginning to believe it. 

Beginning to believe that he's safe here, that Steve wants to protect and take care of him, that the team loves him, that he can be happy. 

The problem is that he  _ wants  _ to believe it. 

The problem is--he knows it's a lie, and when he's awake he can ignore that knowledge, shove it down deep where he doesn't have to examine it and what it means and why being here is so fucking dangerous. 

His subconscious apparently didn't get the same memo, and still saw the threat Tony was stupid enough to overlook. 

Still saw the threat Rogers  _ is _ . 

Rogers did his level best to kill him, left him for dead, and it's stupid to think that just because they're here, in this insane wonderland world, that he's had a sudden change of heart. 

It's stupid to think he's safe. 

The problem is--he wants to. 

He wants to so damn badly it aches, a heavy pit in his stomach, a throb in his teeth, a pressure against his sternum where the arc reactor sits, and it never goes away. 

The problem is--he doesn't want it to. 

The problem is--he can feel that same want echoed back from Steve. 

~*~ 

He hides for thirty six hours before Clint drops through the vents and perches on the worktable. 

"Just for that, I'm not giving you the new splody arrows," Tony says. 

"If you don't come out, you aren't giving anyone anything," Clint says, easy. 

Tony sulks at him and Clint tips his head, studying the man. "You haven't hidden like this in a while. What's goin' on, Stark?" 

"Nightmare threw me," he says, shortly. 

"And you threw Steve across the room, yeah, we got that. What's goin' on, though?" 

"Isn't that enough?" Tony demands, shoving away from the table and running a hand through his hair. It's greasy and he makes a face. 

"No," Clint says. "It used to be--but you don't do this anymore. And we sure as hell don't excuse it when you do." 

Tony pauses, staring at the archer. "You take care of us, Stark. And it's hard to do that when you're locked in your workshop. But the same is true of us--we take care of you. And we want you to come out so that we can do that." 

"I hurt Steve." 

"Barnes did worse when he wasn't in the grip of a nightmare, when he first came back. Steve can handle it. We just need you to come out and be around the team again. Can you do that for us, Tony?" 

He stares at Clint, at the hope in his eyes, the quiet acceptance of whatever answer Tony gives. 

He nods. 

Even knowing it's a bad idea, he nods. 

~*~

Clint rides with him up to his floor, and they don't run into anyone between the workshop and his penthouse. "Get cleaned up. Bruce is cooking and he'll be sad if you're late," Clint says, patting Tony's shoulder and stepping back into the elevator, leaving Tony standing, bewildered and dirty in his penthouse. 

He showers. Not just because Clint told him to. He smells and his face itches, and he wants clean clothes. 

But dressed and clean and shaved, he sits on his bed and says, "J, I don't think I can do this." 

"The team expects nothing of you, Sir. Nothing that you are not willing to give." 

"Their Tony was willing--what if I'm not." 

"Have you considered telling them, Sir, that you are not in fact the Tony of this world?" 

He hasn't. 

No--he has. He did. Briefly. "They'll treat me different," he whispers. "They'll treat both of us different." 

He doesn't say that it won't matter to Rogers, because the team adored Rogers, and it wouldn't matter if it was him or someone else--Tony though. 

Tony took effort and work, and they hadn't learned to like  _ him _ , they had done that with his counterpart. 

"They love you, Sir. I think you will find that love is extended to any form you take." 

Tony sits on his bed. "They don't love me, in my world." 

"I find it difficult to believe there is any world where you are not loved by your team, Sir," JARVIS says. "If those who are your team here do not love you in your own world--maybe they are not the team you need." 

Tony closes his eyes and smiles a little, basking in the warm acceptance of his AI. "I've missed you, buddy," he says, at last. He stands up and a thought curls around him, tugging and he says, "JARVIS, can you look up anything you can find on Peter Parker? Guardian's are Ben and May." 

"Of course, Sir." 

He nods and then says, softly, "Do you think it's wrong of me, to be happy here?" 

"No," the AI says promptly, and the lack of equivocation, the sureness of his answer makes that warmth bloom, a comforting heat that reminds him of being a child and Ana's warm hugs. 

He steps into the elevator, to go to his team, and he admits to himself, where no one, not even JARVIS can witness it--that he wants to stay. 

That he loves this, this team and family and tower with his first child, and he wants, desperately, to stay. 

~*~

Tony is different, after his nightmare. 

Steve expects the way he bolts--what he doesn't expect is for the team to tolerate it for only three days before Clint is sent after him. He doesn't expect the way the rest wait, impatient, worry writ across every face, or the way Natasha bullies Tony with gentle touches and a hand-knit blanket around his shoulders to the couch after dinner. He doesn't expect Bucky to sprawl at the older man's feet, a protective feline recline or the way his ice blue eyes watch Steve, deliberate and assessing, and only relaxes when Tony leans into Steve's warmth, cautious and unsure, but relaxing. 

Like this is where he wants to be, and he's beginning to realize that maybe he can keep it. 

~*~ 

They run in silence. 

Most mornings, Steve runs alone, but Bucky slipped out of the shadows, smelling faintly of Natasha's perfume and clean linen, and fell into place at Steve's side as they walk to the park. 

They jog in silence for most of ten miles, and then, "You gonna tell me what's eatin' at you, punk?" 

The truth is--he doesn't know. He doesn't know how to tell Buck that this world fits and  _ doesn't _ . 

Because Bucky doesn't, and of all the discordant notes of the Wonderland Shuri threw them into, Bucky's low-grade hostility is the one that he can't quite adjust to. 

Even Tony’s emotions, spiking sharp and blindingly brilliant, are easier to adjust to than that. 

"Why don't you like me?" 

"Like you just fine," Bucky answers easily. "Just not sure I trust you with Tony's well-being. According to him, that's probably a good call." 

"I won't hurt him," Steve protests. 

"You already did." 

Steve feels his temper spike.There’s a frisson of sleepy concern from Tony and he soothes it absently as he stares at Bucky. Because this is Bucky, but it's not  _ his _ Bucky, and he doesn't  _ know _ . .

He doesn't know what happened or why. 

"I did that to protect you," Steve snaps. 

"Does that make it better?" 

The question is asked so mildly he  _ knows _ it's not an attack. 

It still feels like one. 

"He would have killed you," Steve says, looking away. "You weren't there--you didn't see how angry he was." 

"I know how angry Tony was--my Tony--when he found out Hydra sent me to kill his parents. And I know he had every right to be  _ that  _ angry. If you--you let him find out while I stood in front of him, when he was already facing a fractured team. Attacking me was self-preservation." 

"Bucky--"

"He was in the suit, wasn't he?" Bucky presses, voice turning hard and Steve nods. "And I walked away." 

"Barely," Steve shoots back. 

"He didn't  _ kill _ me. He could, you  _ know _ he could. Without even trying or throwing a punch. He didn't. Doesn't that mean  _ anything _ to you." 

Steve blinks at Bucky, wipes the sweat from his eyes. "You think he was right." 

Bucky huffs. "Of fucking course I do. I always thought Tony should take a swing at me for what I did to him. That he didn't always sat wrong." 

Steve bites his lip and shakes his head. “It’s not the same--” 

“It is,” Buck says, evenly. 

“It’s  _ not,” _ Steve snaps. “Because my Tony isn’t yours. And my Tony--he doesn’t trust me. He won’t  _ ever _ trust me.”

“Have you given him a reason to?” Bucky asks, finally losing some of his cool, his voice going sharp and hard. “Have you given him one goddamn reason to think that what you did, what  _ we _ did to him--was never supposed to happen, and that it keeps you up at night, that it gives you nightmares to even think about?”

Steve almost asks how he knows that--but it’s Bucky. Bucky always knows where Steve’s head’s at. “He doesn’t trust you because you haven’t given him a reason to,” Bucky says, softly. “You treat him the way the team expects our Tony and Steve to act--and that’s great, but it’s not real. Tony doesn’t trust it, because it’s the mission, not  _ you _ and  _ him. _ ” 

It makes a sick kind of sense, and explains so much of the way Tony will pull away in private, his eyes shadowed and wary and untrusting, his emotions locked behind a wall Steve can’t get around. 

“Do you think I’ll ever stop fucking up with him?” Steve asks, weakly. 

“Probably not--our Steve didn’t. He still pisses Tony off and they still fight like cats and dogs, but they also make it work, because even when one of them is being a dick, they trust each other. Give him a reason to trust you, Steve.”

“What if he doesn’t want that?” Steve asks, and he thinks if it were anyone else, he wouldn’t. He would keep that desperate fear to himself. 

But it’s Bucky. 

And Bucky is safe. Always has been. 

He ignores the sunshine bright curiosity he can feel from Tony.

“He will,” Bucky says. “He’s waiting for you to give him the excuse.”

Steve is quiet, lost in thought and Bucky sighs. Bumps his shoulder companionably. Somewhere along the way, the jog and talk devolved into standing in the middle of the path, glaring at each other. 

Steve wonders what it says about them or New Yorkers, that no one has stopped to record Captain America and the Winter Soldier arguing in sweaty running gear. 

"C'mon, punk. I'll get you pancakes. Then you can get him some coffee and figure out how to apologize." 

"Your Tony likes coffee too?" Steve says, a little wistful and Bucky snorts. Wraps an arm around Steve's broad shoulders and turns him away from the park, toward a dinner that both of them like for greasy eggs and fluffy pancakes. 

"Pal, I don't think there's a Tony in the multiverse that doesn't like coffee," Bucky says. 

He nudges Steve a little and his voice is firmer, serious. "Some things are absolute." 

Steve tips his head, considering that, and then, "You're dating a guy in my world." 

Bucky's stride hitches, just a little, before he smoothes out. "Am I?" 

"Mmm. Not sure exactly how that happened--you tried killing him first." 

Bucky grins, and pushes him traffic. "I guess that's our constant. I tried to kill Tasha too." 

"I think that's foreplay, Buck," Steve says, desert dry, just to see the way his best friend laughs. 

~*~ 

Rhodey doesn't live in the Tower. 

It's a throwback, Tony knows, to their days at MIT, when Tony struggled with balance, too new to the idea of  _ friendship _ , to understand that he didn't have to buy Rhodey's love, that it came without strings, and that sometimes the strings only made things worse. 

Apparently it’s a constant in both universes.

He's never lived in one of Tony's properties. Not his house in California, not the brownstone Howard bought in Cambridge, not the many houses around the world that Rhodey has free access to. 

He visits, he'll crash in Tony's bed when they're in the same place, but he's never accepted it as his own. 

He never will. 

He stays, Tony knows, after three decades,  _ because  _ of Tony, not in spite of him. 

The apartment he rents in midtown is nice. Not Tony's normal standards of nice, but still--good security, clean and open, a loft with vaulted ceilings. There's a raised bed built into one corner, and Tony eyes it. "Did we do that?" 

Rhodey nods, and peers at the pizza. "Oh man, other me has  _ excellent _ taste." 

Tony makes a face. "Don't put it that way," he grumbles, stealing a slice of pizza and one of the beers before he slumps onto the couch. 

He won't admit it to Rhodey, or himself, but he missed this. 

"I like having you in the city," he says, picking a sliver of onion off the pizza and crunching into it. 

"Yeah," Rhodey says, and his voice is soft. "I know. I've tried to stay close since the Battle of New York." 

Tony tilts his head. "Was it bad?" 

"Probably as bad as it was for you," Rhodey says, watching Tony with those dark knowing eyes. "But that's not why you're here." 

"Oh? Why am I here, platypus?" 

"You're avoiding the team. And Rogers." 

Tony smiles, thin. "Maybe I didn't miss this as much as I thought." 

Rhodey snorts and tips his head. "What happened?" 

"Not drunk enough for that story," Tony says, swallowing a bite of pizza. It lodges in his throat, sideways and wrong and Rhodey pats his back, obligingly. 

"Guess you should start drinking then," he says, and opens another beer for both of them. 

~*~ 

He's well on his way to drunk when he rolls his head. "My Rhodey won't let me drink like this anymore." 

"I don't usually let my Tones, but," Rhodey shrugs, a sloppy shift that makes Tony giggle. "I'm tryin' to get you to talk about something you really don't wanna talk about." 

"You don't want to hear," he says, sadly. His mental wall is soggy, but holding, Steve’s emotions carefully locked away and he thinks 

"I promise I won't hit Cap," Rhodey says, exasperated. 

Tony blinks and then. "We fought. About--there's some shit that hasn't happened here. Big enough that he doesn't trust me. I screwed up, people got hurt. And we won, you know, but there's the cost of it." 

Rhodey is quiet, waiting, that kind of quiet that Tony loves him for. "I didn't think we'd ever really be okay--we fucked up. We were never like  _ this _ . But then--Barnes." 

Rhodey's frown deepens and Tony says, "Steve didn't tell me that Barnes killed my parents. And we were already fighting--about the Accords and how to bring him in--Barnes was wanted for bombing the UN--" 

_ "What?" _

Tony waves a hand. "He didn't--but there was this fight. And someone got hurt. I was pissed--I was pissed going in, because I was worried, and then I got the parent's murder bomb dropped on me while Robocop was standing right  _ there _ , and I'm not--I reacted." 

"It was bad?" 

Tony shrugs. He wants to downplay it. Wants to brush it aside, but--this is Rhodey. Rhodey's always seen through his lies. "I took Barnes arm off. I didn't want to kill them--either of them. I just--I was so  _ angry _ , and Rogers' wouldn't quit, and neither would I. Rock and immovable force, right?" 

"How--" 

"He put the shield into my arc reactor. Killed the suit. I couldn't fight him after that," Tony says, jerking to his feet and pacing. He has to pace, because he wants to scream, the pressure building across his chest, the crunch of metal and glass and bone echoing in his ears. 

"And then?" Rhodey asks, his voice cold. 

He's pissed. Tony knew he would be. "They left. Went to--a safe haven." 

"And you--what happened to you?" 

Tony closes his eyes. It had been cold. So fucking cold, and endless. There'd been a long time, lying there in the suit and trying to breathe, that he'd been sure he'd die. The emergency pulse went out when the arc reactor shattered though, the last line of protective measures, and he'd passed out in the ice, sure he'd die there--and woken up on a quinjet, Happy and Pepper hovering over him. 

"FRIDAY got me home safe." 

If the AI's name registers with Rhodey, he doesn't say. 

"They're not at the Tower, are they?" 

"No," Tony says. "Steve staged a jailbreak, got out everyone the government arrested--and they're in hiding. I know where--I just don't know what good it'll do to drag them out." 

Rhodey nods and then, "How bad was I hurt?" 

Tony flinches. He'd hoped,  _ prayed _ , that Rhodey wouldn't pick up on how little Tony mentioned him, that he'd let it slide. 

He should have known better. 

"Can I at least protect your back?" Rhodey asks and there's a desperation to his voice that makes Tony want to cry. He shakes his head and Rhodey's face--it  _ twists _ , crunches up into something that's  _ painful _ to see. “I’m fixing it,” Tony says. “Fixing you.”

His voice is small, pleading and Rhodey huffs a curse and pulls Tony into his arms. He huddles there, breathing in the comfortable scent of him, reveling in the way Rhodey is big, a broad shield between him and the world. 

“I don’t give a fuck about that,” Rhodey says. “You were out there  _ alone.”  _

Tony sniffles, and doesn’t argue because he knows better. Rhodey would see through it anyway. He’s always had the tendency to compare himself to Barnes, the solid back up to Tony’s strength, the way Bucky was for Steve--the idea of Tony facing both of them without anyone in his corner at all would infuriate him. 

“I’m ok,” Tony says. “No lasting damage.”

He doesn’t mention the ribs that cracked. He doesn’t talk about the collapsed lung or the concussion or the wrist he fractured, the casts that only just came off. He doesn’t say anything about the nightmares. 

He walked away. Even broken, he walked away and that’s a helluva a lot more than Rhodey did. 

“How do you tolerate being around them?” Rhodey says. “Around  _ Rogers.” _

Tony shrugs, a deliberately light motion that he doesn’t really feel. “This team--it’s not like mine. It’s like what mine  _ could  _ have been, if we’d have trusted each other.”

“It’s easy to remember this isn’t my world,” Tony says, lamely. 

Rhodey’s watching him, his eyes narrowed and too knowing. Rhodey has always been able to see right through him and it’s particularly annoying right this moment, when he doesn’t want to be seen, when he feels like he’s hiding everything that’s most important. “Tony?” Rhodey asks, gently, and Tony faces the window, unable to look at his friend, not for this. 

The scotch sits too heavy in his gut and the truth twists on his tongue, begging to be said. “I don’t want to go back, Rhodes. I--this world, the team--it’s everything I never realized the team could be, never realized I wanted. And I don't want to lose it.” 

~*~

Tony is skittish in the following days. His emotions go from wildly broadcast to locked up so tight Steve has to go find Tony, to reassure himself that the other man is  _ there. _

Steve isn’t sure if Bucky talked to him about what they discussed--he doesn’t think so. Buck is his best friend, and even in this world where he is loyal to Tony, that hasn’t changed. 

Rhodey shows up, steely eyed and coldly furious, so reminiscent of the Rhodey who always faced Steve after he and Tony fought that it all clicks in place. 

Rhodey doesn’t bring it up though, doesn’t shout or threaten or punch Steve in the face, so he’s a step ahead of Buck in the how well is he handling this department. 

The thing is--he doesn’t know  _ how  _ to apologize. 

That’s what Bucky says to do, and he’s right, Steve needs to--Tony had done his part, had made sure the Accords were reworked and the Avengers were pardoned. 

But what had Steve done? He’d hidden in Wakanda, licked his wounds, protested how right he was, protected Bucky--and maybe none of those were wrong, on their own. But there was the face that he’d lied. 

He’d  _ lied.  _

He had never trusted Tony, not the way he should, and then it was too late because the damage was done--the team was shattered and Tony didn’t trust him and he wasn’t sure Tony  _ should. _

He starts with coffee, and sitting in the workshop. He makes dinner, Tony’s favorite and doesn’t set the damn place of fire. He even cleans the bots arms and struts, giving them more oil and a good polish, til DUM-E whirls around the workshop so fast he breaks a prototype and Tony banishes him to his charging dock. 

He doesn’t go near JARVIS. Tony doesn’t talk about the AI that died--but Steve remembers the way he’d looked, when he realized Ultron had killed JARVIS, when he found the shattered code that marked JARVIS corpse. 

He didn’t know how to address that grief, and he never had. It’s easier to let it go, now, when JARVIS is alive and in every inch of the Tower and Tony doesn’t visibly flinch when he hears the AI’s voice. 

Maybe, he thinks, sitting in the workshop, watching Tony working on Clint’s arrows--that’s the problem. 

He’d always let Tony steer them toward the easy path, because Tony  _ did,  _ he went out of his way to make things easier for Steve, for the entire team, and every time he did, every time Tony’s emotions, seething under the surface, were ignored because it was easier--he retreated a little. 

He hid behind his walls and his masks and his public persona. 

No fucking wonder his mental walls were sky high and a mile thick.

“I’m an idiot,” Steve breathes, and Tony twitches, looks at him curiously. A curiosity he doesn’t  _ feel _ and knows he should. Steve looks back, and he thinks, it can’t be this easy. 

He thinks, it isn’t. 

“I was wrong,” he says. 

Tony goes still, his eyes wide and Steve shifts forward a little. “About Bucky and the Accords--and not telling you about your parents. I was wrong.”

Tony looks away. “We don’t have to do this. It’s over--water--” 

“It hurt you,” Steve says. “ _ I _ hurt you. And that deserves to be acknowledged. I fucked up, Tony and i am so fucking  _ sorry. _ ”

Tony swallows hard. Looks away. “It’s fine.”

“No it’s not,” Steve says, softly, softly enough that Tony’s eyes flick to him, wary and hopeful. The emotions shimmer, dazzling bright light, in his mind, and Steve almost sobs. “I can’t undo it. Not in the world where it matters. But I fucked up and I need you to know that I know it. That I am going to do everything I can do to make you comfortable.”

“What if you can’t do anything?” Tony asks, curiously. “If I need to never see or hear your name again?”

“I’d make that happen.”

Tony blinks, and Steve smiles at him. “I’d give up the shield, Tony, if that’s what you need to feel safe.”

His chest feels tight and there’s something breathless, hopeful, in his voice when he says, “You mean that, don’t you?” 

Steve nods, and reaches for him. Catches Tony’s hand in his and squeezes. “I know you don’t trust me, yet. You don’t have to. When you’re ready--I’ll be here. And if you never are--that’s your choice and I’ll respect it.” 

~*~

Steve keeps his distance in the days that follow. He's getting better at keeping his emotions tucked away--sometimes Tony will feel the searing heat of his happiness and the ice of his grief, but for the most part, he stays on his side of the walls Tony has between them. And out of the workshop. 

He doesn't  _ miss _ Steve, exactly. But the last conversation niggles in the back of his mind, an unresolved equation, and he wants to tug at the lose string of it, unravel it and find out if Steve is being straight with him. 

And he's terrified to. Terrified to find that it's all a lie, a way to slip behind Tony's defenses and hurt him again. 

So he hides in his workshop and in the company of the murder twins, with Rhodey and Bruce and pretends he doesn't feel Steve's gaze on him, as the days tick by. 

And then the alarm goes off, and Tony can feel the white hot heat of Steve's worry and excitement, and he almost grins as he spins away from the specs he's working on--"J, send that to Pep, will you,"--toward the suit, already opening up to welcome him in. 

He's in the air less than a minute later, and he can hear Rhodey through the comms, the rush of air as they fly. "What've we got?" he asks. 

"A HYDRA base north of Quebec," JARVIS says, placid. "It appears they've gotten their hands on long range missiles." 

"Well that doesn't belong in their sandbox," Tony says, and he darts north, Rhodey hot on his heels. "Keep up, you guys." 

Clint curses him mildly from the quinjet and Tony grins. 

~*~ 

The base is tucked into the vast Canadian forests, bright and green in the summer. "JARVIS, just what kind of missiles are we looking at?" Tony asks as he scans the base. It's heavily fortified, a shield powered by--"Shit, they've got Loki's staff." 

"Tony," Steve says, urgently, and Tony wheels up and away from the base before he can bounce off the shield. "Are you sure?" 

There's surprise, a raging inferno in his mind and Tony flicks it absently. "Yeah. That signature--JARVIS wouldn't mistake that." 

It shouldn't be here, is the thing. It should be in Sokovia, waiting for the team to storm in and snatch it up, and set them on a course toward Ultron.

"Can you take the shield?" Steve asks and Tony huffs. 

"JARVIS, target the power supply and blow open the doors," Tony says and it takes all of thirty seconds for the shield to tremble and fall. 

"We got any enhanced present?" 

Tony does another scan--deeper, probing and invasive and then, "No. But, Cap--they have a Chair." 

There's a moment of silence, complete and utter, and then, "Widow, Hulk, keep them distracted. We want them focused on you. War Machine, get Hawkeye to a nest and pick off what you can. Ironman--" 

There's a breath of hesitation, barely a heartbeat before, "Take Winter. He'll know the base better than anyone. I want that scepter." 

The team is falling into plan, and Tony--Tony hovers in the air, his eyes wide and heart pounding, because--"Steve, are you sure?" he asks, and his voice breaks, just a little. 

Warmth, sweet as summer mornings, envelops him and Steve says, "Yeah, shelhead. I'm sure. Take care of him." 

~*~ 

It’s shockingly easy. They’re in and out without incident--Winter pauses, once, to stare at the Chair, and Tony fires a repulsor beam at it that leaves it a smoking slag heap, before cold gray eyes find him and he nods. Turns them down endless tunnels and rooms, until the narrow halls opens up into a lab, and it’s there. 

Waiting, bright blue glowing, and Tony has a moment of dejavu, of  _ this has happened before _ . 

He shoves it aside, grabs the scepter and nods at Winter. “Let’s go.” 

~*~ 

Steve finds him, after. In his workshop, the scepter locked away, and his hands shaking. That sun sweet warmth hasn’t faded, hasn’t faltered at all and Tony has no fucking idea what to do with it. What to do with  _ Steve.  _

“I know why you did that,” Tony says, before he can speak. 

“Why?” Steve asks, softly. He’s close enough Tony could touch him--or he could touch Tony. It doesn’t terrify him the way it used to. The way it still should. 

“You wanted to prove you trust me,” Tony says. 

Steve is quiet, and Tony rubs his mouth. It still tastes like metal air and fire, the way it always does after he’s been fighting in the suit. “Steve--you can’t--” 

“I can,” Steve says. “I trust you--with Bucky. With that scepter. Ok? I need you to  _ know _ that, Tony.” There’s a burning in his mind, and he thinks, maybe that isn’t from Steve. Maybe it’s  _ because  _ of him. 

He turns and walks away and Tony--Tony doesn’t want him to go. A  _ cascade _ of emotions, rainbow bright in his mind, shatter through Tony’s wall and Steve sways, a hand to his temple.

Tony blurts out, “Have dinner with me.” 

Steve hesitates, disbelief in his eyes that makes Tony’s rainbow lights squirm, anxious. 

“I’m never gonna get over my shit, if we keep avoiding each other,” he says, lamely, and Steve stares, hard and assessing, for a long few minutes. And then nods. 

“Ok, Tony.” 

~*~ 

Dinner is a simple thing. 

They go to a nearby Greek restaurant Tony swears by, a place with paper lined baskets and gyros that makes Steve's mouth water and warm pita to scoop up spicy hummus. Tony steals Steve's olives and when he doesn't get stabbed by a wayward fork, grins and chases a bit of cucumber around Steve's plate. 

It's easy, easy in a way he didn't expect. "This whole world is easy," Tony says, and Steve flicks a look at him. 

"Do you ever wonder if we could have gotten here, in our world?" 

"I don't even know where we should have turned left instead of right," Steve admits. 

"You moved into the Tower," Tony says, "After the Battle of New York--that's where we started to go different. Here. You moved into the Tower. I guess it was just the two of us, and we bonded." Tony's lips quirk into a smile so sardonic and mocking it makes Steve ache. 

"We could bond," Steve says, softly. "We are, now, aren't we?" 

Tony tips his head a little and Steve pauses in the middle of hunting through their platter of meat for the last of the lamb to stare back. 

"We are," Tony says, "But I don't know if what this is--if it's because of me and you? Or if it's because of Wonderland." He taps the side of his head, “Because of this.” 

Steve's expression crunches up, confusion and concern in his eyes, sparking sour concern in his mind. "Do you think--no, Tony, listen." 

"It's not that I think it's  _ changing _ our minds, or  _ us _ . But it's--there's something very alluring about a world where we don't fall apart. The team--don't you wish we had a team like this, and not a team like the one we have." 

"It's  _ our _ team," Steve protests and Tony flinches a little. Looks away. 

"It's  _ your _ team," Tony says. "They've always been yours. I'm--I wish we had a team that was a family." 

Steve stares at him and Tony shrugs. Smiles. "It's tempting, is all I'm saying, Steve. The world--the family. It's what Fury wanted us to be--and what I wanted. But it's never been what we are. Yeah. The world isn't ours--it's like a mirror of everything we could have been if we hadn't fucked up." His smile twists. "If I hadn't." 

"It's not on you," Steve says, leaning forward, into his space and Tony blinks. Shakes his head. "Tony, I left. That's where it went wrong, right? That's on me." 

"You left because you didn't want to go back to SHIELD and you had nowhere to go. I didn't offer," Tony says, softly. 

"I was too scared to offer." 

"Scared?" Steve murmurs.

Tony looks at him. Big and blonde and beautiful, the same way he's always been. Steady where Tony is a chaotic mess, strong in ways Tony can't be--but he always was willing to listen, when Tony spoke, when the world around him was too much for Steve and he  _ knew _ Tony was better equipped, smarter, more capable--he listened. 

He listened until he didn't. 

But even once he stopped--Tony never stopped wanting him to listen. 

To care. 

He leans forward, across the fafala and hummus and remnants of their salad, and kisses Steve. 

Soft, a fleeting brushing thing, a taste of full pink lips--garlic and tzatziki and  _ Steve _ , and he gasps, a little, under Tony's mouth, a noise that hits hard right in the gut, makes him want to push in, push for  _ more _ , sink into his lap and twist his fingers into Steve's hair and  _ takes _ , every fucking thing Steve will give. 

"Tony," Steve whispers against his lips and Tony pulls back, blinks through the fog of hungry want--Tesla, who’s even is that, his or Steve’s, so bright and consuming, he thinks it’s  _ theirs-- _ to see Steve staring at him with wide, blown eyes, looking shocked, lips pink and pouty and--

"Oh fuck," Tony gasps. He almost falls out of his chair, stumbling to get away and Steve makes a noise, small and wounded, "Oh, fuck, I am--I'm--Steve, I'm so--" 

"If you say your sorry, I'll hit you, and I promised myself I was done hitting you," Steve says, and his voice is shaking. The amusement curling through Tony’s mind, though--that confuses him.

But his words make Tony still, the panic curling around the  _ want _ going still under the heated warmth of Steve's stare. "Tony," Steve says, sliding from his seat and reaching for Tony, a reach that’s echoed in syrup sweet slides of heat in his mind. 

He goes. 

Steve reaches for him, and Tony--Tony goes, slides into his arms, and he knows better, knows this is a bad idea, knows that this Steve isn't the one who loves Tony and wears his ring and built a team into a family. 

It's still  _ his _ Steve, broke to hell and carrying enough baggage to sink the Titanic again, and nothing--nothing here in Wonderland can fix that. 

But he's reaching for Tony. 

And he hasn't done that, not really, not since Ultron and everything that went wrong and Tony  _ missed _ it, so goddamn much. 

Steve reaches for him, and Tony goes, slides into his arms, tips his head up and takes the kiss Steve gives him, and damns the consequences. 

  
  
  


~*~

He wakes up and it's almost familiar. There's a warm body pressed against his, and hair in his mouth and for a heartbeat, he thinks he's in Wakanda, and Bucky has slipped into his bed after a nightmare, the way he had when they were boys in Brooklyn and Steve's coughing woke him. 

Then he shifts, and his bedmate grumbles, and it slams into him. 

Dinner and confessions, apologies long overdue and Tony kissing him, and the trip home, fingers twisted together, pushing into each other's space, tugging Tony into alley's to press kisses into his laughing mouth and up and down his neck. 

Sucking a bruise into his throat as the elevator rose and Tony whined. 

Stripping him of his shirt in the penthouse kitchen while Tony scrambled to loosen Steve's belt. Hoisting him up and carrying him, and knocking a picture off the wall when Tony rolled his hips, a dirty sweet mind-blowingly good grind. 

They didn't talk much, just fell into bed and Tony had begged, sweet and needy and bossy, even here. He remembers laughing, while Tony rode him, his slim, muscular body gold touched and achingly beautiful and his mouth demanding and hungry as he came between them, messy, dragging Steve right along with him. 

Tony is sleeping still, a warm weight against his side and he shifts, goes up on one elbow to watch him. His face is slack and beautiful, peaceful. 

Even in sleep, he’s breathtaking and animated, a restless kind of motion that shifts the sheet down his body. There’s something undeniably erotic about it, and for the first time in a lifetime--he wants to reach for his pencils, wants to draw. 

He wants to put this moment, Tony in his bed and marked with his bruises, on paper, wants to keep it tucked close to his heart when he’s in his uniform and fighting, when Tony is distant and untouchable. 

He can’t. Even if he had paper and pencil at hand, he doesn’t know how to do that anymore. Create things that are beautiful. The Army took that part of him and carved it away and made his art from war and he painted that on the canvas of Tony’s body once, already. 

He never wants to do it again. 

“You’re thinking really loud,” Tony grumbles, and shifts. Props his chin on Steve’s chest. “What’s got you down, handsome?” 

Steve shakes his head, unwilling to bring their past into this moment, into their bed. He shifts, smiles, at him. Sparkles of light flicker, acknowledgement, in his mind, reflected in Tony’s eyes, and his lips twist into a smirk that’s all mischief and promise, before he slithers down Steve’s body. 

He gets a blinding flare of light behind his eyelids and Steve almost shouts, when Tony’s lips wrap around him, sink down until his cock nudges against Tony’s throat. He’s soft, still, but hardening rapidly and Tony groans around him, a deep guttural vibration that drives Steve fucking  _ wild,  _ twisting with the red hot sparkles of Tony’s  _ want _ in his mind _. _ His hips lift, just a little, and one hand cards into Tony’s hair, needing that touch, the curve of his skull under Steve’s palm. “Sweetheart,” he breathes, and Tony  _ sucks _ , and Steve screams. 

Later, in the shower, Steve wraps around Tony. He likes holding him, the way he can curve his big broad body around the smaller man and shield him from the spray, hold him safe against him. He likes the slippery slide of skin against skin, the drag of Tony's cock against his belly. He likes the way in the bright lights of the bathrooms, the bruises and bitemarks are stark against Tony's honey gold skin. 

He touches them, a self-satisfied smile on his lips and Tony--Tony lets him, bright orange amusement flaring in his mind, eyes soft, content to bask in this moment. 

"You're very possessive," Tony murmurs, when Steve dips down to suck a new bruise into his collarbone. 

"I like seeing me on your skin," he breathes. 

"You should clean me up," Tony says. "And then you should fuck me. Get me nice and full of your come. I got a plug in the bedside table." 

Steve's fingers tighten, reflexive, on his hips and Tony laughs, low and throaty, bronze fireworks lighting up the darkness, smug and cocky. "You like that, huh, soldier? Want to pull that plug out later tonight and see your cum on my ass, and dripping down my legs." 

"Tony," Steve says, almost gasps, and Tony kisses him. 

"Clean me up first," Tony orders. 

~*~ 

It's lazy, is the thing. The way that Steve cleans him, slow and teasing. The way he fingers Tony open, after, the way he sits on the shower bench and drags Tony into his lap and fucks into him with a slow roll of his hips, driving him crazy maddeningly slow, trading kisses that make Tony's toes curl and his arousal soar, and it never does peak, not until Steve is panting and Tony is almost sobbing, and Steve curls a hand around his cock, and Tony comes with a howl, spilling across Steve's abs and oh, oh oh, gods, that's--

He understands, a little, why Steve likes seeing him covered in bruises, why he got so damn distracted about the plug--seeing his come all over Steve's pretty pink flushed skin is distractingly gorgeous. 

Steve groans when Tony bites a bruise into his skin, fucking up hard and coming in hot pulses that makes Tony tremble and wish he could come again. 

He slumps there, in Steve's arms, the water still spilling around them, fingers tracing in the come sticky between them and Steve looks at him. 

And it slips out, before he can stop himself. Come stupid and happier than he has a right to be, he lets it slip out. 

"I'm happy here," he confesses. 

"Me too," Steve says. "It'll be---difficult...to go home." 

Tony closes his eyes and tips his head back. Says, soft enough that he barely hears himself over the cascading water and Steve's breathing in his ear. "What if we stayed here?"

~*~ 

Steve and Tony dress in silence--a near miracle considering  _ Tony _ . He keeps waiting for Steve to say something, to accuse him of being selfish. To tell him what he's asking is impossible and a fool's dream and irresponsible. 

It's nothing Tony hasn't already told himself. 

But Steve--he dresses in jeans that do frankly  _ amazing _ things for his ass, a shirt that strains across his broad shoulders, and pads out of the bedroom after Tony in bare, pretty feet. 

He didn't realize Steve had pretty feet. 

He isn't entirely sure what to do with the information, now that he has it. 

Steve is quiet on the elevator to the team's common floors. He speaks, once, tips his head to the side and says, "I think omelets for breakfast." 

Tony blinks at him. 

He almost asks--but fear keeps his words trapped behind his tongue, and Steve squeezes his hand, once, before dragging him out of the elevator. 

The thing is--he didn't  _ mean _ to say it. He was come drunk and sex stupid and it slipped out, but it was never intentional, and he knows that Steve is going to freak out--that he has ever right to freak out. 

But it just doesn't come.

He steers Tony into the kitchen, and Bucky looks up from where he's dicing vegetables, his eyes tracking down to their hands clasped together, and he smirks. "Omelette, Stevie?" 

Tony's eyes narrow and he opens his mouth, as Bucky says, smoothly, "Coffee's ready, Boss." 

Tony lets it go, lets Steve go, because  _ coffee _ , and doesn't even say anything when he hears the super soldier besties whispering behind him. 

He pulls himself on the counter, kicks his feet and texts Rhodey. If they get to be petty teenagers with a crush, so does he. 

He's pretty sure there's a flaw in his logic somewhere, but Rhodey texts back to say he's on his way to take the suits out and he grins into his coffee and reaches to steal a piece of bacon from the platter. "Where's everyone else?" 

"Tasha is still sleepin'," Bucky says, his grin lecherous and then, "Clint might have crawled in bed with her when I left. He got back from Tripoli last night, don't think it went real well." 

Tony's face creases in concern, and Bucky shakes his head. "I'll brief him when he wakes up. He might just need to unwind, spend some time with Tasha. If not, I'll take care of it." 

Tony pauses in the middle of sipping his coffee, Bucky's tone sliding down his spine with a strange little shiver, and then Bruce stumbles into the room and Bucky is nudging the hot little silver teapot at Tony with a nod. 

It's amusing, how much of a mother hen the Winter Soldier is. It's amusing the way Steve kind of basks in it,campfire warmth filling up his mind, a big smile on his stupid face that Tony is torn between wanting to make fun of, and wanting to kiss. 

He doesn't do either. He pours more coffee and steals bacon until Bucky shoves a plate of eggs and onions and peppers into his hands and he leans into Steve's warmth next to him at the table as the team filters in and fills up the space around him. 

When Rhodey arrives, breakfast is all but gone and Tasha is perched in Clint's lap, her feet propped on Bucky's legs, and Bruce is arguing with Thor about the science of the einstein-rosen bridge. 

Steve has an arm draped across the back of Tony's chair and his head is resting perilously close to Steve's shoulder, something that Rhodey registers by the arch of his eyebrows and slightly incredulous look. 

"You ready, Tones," Rhodey asks and Tony nods, rolling out of his chair. 

Steve peers up at him. "Just gonna go fly with Rhodey," he says, and leans down to brush a kiss against Steve's pink mouth. "I'll see you in a few hours." 

Steve squeezes his hand and releases him. 

"What the hell," Rhodey breathes, as they walk toward the elevator and Tony smiles, not bothering to answer. 

~*~ 

Rhodey and Tony return windswept and laughing, and Steve watches him. He feels like he  _ can _ watch now--like he wasn't allowed to before and now he can and he's desperate for it, desperate for every single flicker of emotion on his beautiful mobile face. He's grinning, wild and smelling of sweat and sunshine, and Rhodey is shoving him, teasing and he's so goddamn beautiful--

_ What if we stayed here? _

The question echoes and echoes and echoes, the way it has since they were in the shower and Tony was clinging to him with weak, trembling hands and whispered it, a secret trapped there. 

He knows they have to address it. 

He knows his silence is making Tony anxious--can feel it in the violet sparkles that shiver through Tony’s other emotions--but he doesn't know what to say. 

He doesn't know how to say he wants that. 

That he wants  _ this _ , this world with its family, with the way his art is scattered everywhere instead of a forgotten relic. He wants his best friend grinning and holding the woman he loves, and he wants Tony naked and pliant in his bed. 

He wants it so bad it  _ hurts _ to think about. 

There's no way to talk about it, not without blurting out how much he wants it. 

"Do you remember when I told you the man who wanted a life--a normal life, after the war--died in the ice?" 

They're sitting around the dinner table. Bruce is reading on his tablet and Tasha is playing with Bucky's hair and Clint is quiet, the way he has been for most of the day, and it's niggling at Steve, a worrisome discordant note. Rhodey shifts at Tony's side, looking at him. 

"Yes," Tony says. 

"Do you remember telling me the reason we fight?" 

Tony's breath catches, an audible hitch that makes Rhodey glance at him sharply. But there is a cascade of blue sparkles in his mind, pale blue and shimmering gold, and he watches Tony. 

This conversation is happening with the entire team--but it's between him and Tony. 

And it's the only way he can talk about it. Everything else feels too fragile, too selfish, too much of a dream he can't keep. 

"Yes," Tony says, breathless. 

"Do you still want that?" Steve asks.  _ Do you still want to end the fight? _

Tony's eyes are bright, and he reaches for Steve's hand and it feels--momentous. 

Like waking up after seventy years, like seeing Bucky on that bridge, like realizing that he could love Tony--that he  _ did _ love Tony. 

"Yes," Tony says, a third time, and it feels like a vow. 

Steve squeezes his hand. "Me too." 

  
  


~*~

Clint is sitting on the couch, wrapped so close to Natasha that he's almost in her lap. 

It's been three days since he came home from Tripoli, and whatever the hell had happened there had rattled the archer, enough that he hadn't left Natasha's side longer than it took to steal some sleep. 

And if Bucky was to be believed, even that didn't keep him away--he'd crept into their bed and snuggled between them twice since he came home, and the third night, Bucky had climbed into bed with Clint, wrapped him in an unbreakable hold while the other man whined in his sleep. 

He's seen the worry in Nat's eyes, in Bucky while he watches them--he just isn't sure what to do about it. 

He digs a little, but there's nothing in Clint's mission report that says anything happened that should be causing this kind of clingy response. Clint only ever clung to Natasha like this right after the Battle of New York, and once, about nine months later, when Nat caught a bullet in the thigh and almost bled out before Steve and the team was able to manage extraction and dumped her in SHIELD medical. 

But this is nothing like that. 

This--Clint didn't even need stitches, the mission was  _ perfect _ . 

He eyes them and then stands. For once, Bucky isn't hovering protectively. He finds his best friend in the shooting range, emptying a clip with eerie precision and stillness. For a moment, watching him, goggles and ears in place, Steve is looking at a ghost on a bridge, and there's a frisson of fear. 

Bucky turns, and his eyes are cold, empty, blank--and then he blinks, and it's gone, Bucky arching an eyebrow at him. "Need somethin'?" 

"What's goin' on with Clint and Nat?" 

He huffs and shakes his head. Lowers his gun and pulls his ears and goggles off, tossing them down before he starts unassembling the riffle. It's rote, familiar, and Steve relaxes at the sound of metal, the pungent scent of gun cleaner. "You know Clint brought Tasha in, right? He's why she got away from the Red Room." 

Steve nods. That tracks from their own world. "She remembered me, here," Bucky says and Steve flinches. Looks at him. 

"I trained the Red Room girls, sometimes. And Tasha--she was their best. My best. I didn't remember her, really--but she remembered me. And she brought me back. After SHIELD and Triskelion--you were still lookin' for me, and Clint, all his covers were blown to hell because of the data dump, but he knew she'd be lookin' for me. So he helped. He found me, brought me home to her." 

"Why?" 

Bucky tips his head, and Steve shakes his head. "You were feral, Buck. Dangerous. Why did he stick his neck out for someone she knew when she was KGB?" 

"Because she loved me," Bucky says, simply. "And Clint would do anything for his sister." He hesitates and says, "I know things are different, here--but you have to understand. Those two saved my life. There is nothing any of us wouldn't do to protect the others." 

Steve nods, "That's true of the entire team." 

Bucky doesn't answer. He just watches Steve, and nods, turning away to finish cleaning his gun, and Steve wonders if that's true here, still. 

~*~ 

"Rhodey," Tony says, surprised, when Rhodey steps into the workshop. He’s wearing a suit, which is even more startling. "What are you doin' here, honeybear?" 

"You didn't check your schedule, did you? There's a board meeting." 

"I  _ did _ , actually. But it's a meeting about acquisitions. I don't have to go to those. Pep let me stop two years ago." 

Rhodey freezes, and he looks at Tony, his face almost gray. "Tony--" 

"Do you want to get lunch, since I don't have a board meeting," he says and Rhodey's hand catches his elbow. 

Stills him. "You--you don't know." 

His heart is pounding behind the arc reactor, a sharp anticipation boiling in his blood and he wants to bolt. From far away he can feel the moltan wave of Steve’s concern. 

He ignores it. He wants to get away from Rhodey and whatever is making him stare at Tony with so much pity in his eyes but that grip on his elbow feels like all that is holding him together. 

"Rhodey, let's get lunch," he whispers. 

"Sit down, Tony. JARVIS, inform the Board, will you?" 

"Of course, Colonel." Even the AI sounds concerned, and Tony wants to laugh, a sudden hysterical urge that boils in his gut. 

"Tony?" 

Rhodey sounds far away, worried, and Tony realizes he's crumpled, hit the ground. He holds a hand up, almost warding off a blow, and Rhodey flinches. That isn't fair. He knows it isn't. He doesn't care--can't, not right now, not when--

"How," he gasps. "When?" 

Rhodey is silent, long enough that Tony blinks up at him, his eyes bright with unshed tears and desperate, and he sighs. "Christmas, last year. There was a terrorist--he injected her with Extemis." 

Someone moans, a hurt animal noise, and he thinks, distantly, past the furious denial,  _ he fixed that, he fixed her, he saved her _ , that it's him. 

He's the one who sounds so fucking wounded. 

"Tony," Rhodey says, helplessly, and he kneels, curls around Tony, wraps his arms around him. He can feel the wet drip of Rhodey's tears on his neck, the shared grief for the woman they both loved, but it's far away, distant, lost in the firestorm of worry and fear he can’t deal with. 

Searing pain and sharp denial and grief so wide it threatens to drown him--

He inhales, and it's sharp, jagged, tears at his throat, and he howls his grief, shuddering in Rhodey's arms. 

The world is bright and happy and perfect and there is a Pepper shaped hole in it that he doesn't know how to live with. 

~*~ 

When he runs into the workshop, he can barely see through the streaking graylight in his mind, a grief so thick he can  _ taste _ it on his tongue. Tony is sobbing, these deep painful sounding sobs, his whole body curled around his knees, Rhodey braced above him and the Colonel looks up at him, shock and fear in his eyes. 

"He didn't know," he says, helpless. "No one told him." 

Steve almost asks--

Almost. 

But Tony moans, and it diverts his attention, draws him exactly where he should be and he's curling around Tony, shifting him off the ground, into his lap and the circle of his arms, and Tony latches onto him with a strength that takes the breath right from his lungs. He's shaking, his tears silent now, and Steve holds him, rocks him, pets his hair and shushes him with quiet little murmurs that does nothing to soothe his grief. 

And through it all, Rhodey sits next to him, eyes haunted and sad. 

~*~ 

They sedate him. Tony's grief doesn't ebb, just swirls around them both, a gray streaked dimlight that is muting the heat Steve is trying to push at Tony. Bruce comes with a mild sedative, and green flickering in his eyes as he administers it, his touch infinitely gentle as he swabs Tony's arm and steps back. 

"What happened to him?" he asks, and there's a rumble of the Hulk in his voice. Rhodey looks at Steve. He still doesn't like him, Steve knows, but right now he's trusting Steve with Tony, and right now, he knows what just caused this maelstrom of grief. 

"You have to tell the team," he says, and Bruce snarls, a noise more Hulk than man. There's fury burning under his skin, and it's going to get worse. 

It's going to get so much worse. 

"They're not going to understand unless you explain," Rhodey says. 

"I need to talk to the Princess first," Steve says. There is a slim, shiver thin possibility that she has a solution. 

They haven't pushed. Not for the past few days--not since Tony fell into Steve's arms. 

They wanted to  _ stay _ . 

But relief is filling up Rhodey's eyes and a grey streaked fog of grief is drowning him, and he nods. "Get the team together. I'll make the call." 

~*~ 

Shuri has no answers. 

"There is a flower--it can give one access to a different plane--but this seems beyond a flower," she says, doubtful. 

"You  _ knew _ this was going to happen," Steve grits out. Her eyes narrow and then her face goes utterly blank, a beatific smile on her lips. 

"If that is true, then follow my counterpart's directions. I will continue to look for a way to reverse her work." 

"You didn't give me any goddamn directions!" Steve snaps. Shuri's lips tighten. "You said you hoped I was strong. And then you dosed me with that fucking tea and I woke up here, and I don't know what you did--but Tony is lying in that bed like his heart was broken, and I know a thing or two about breaking Tony's heart--whatever the hell you're tryin' to do, you need to let us go home. This isn't workin'. You are  _ hurting _ him!" 

Regret flickers across her face, and then. "He wasn't with you." 

Steve pauses and narrows his eyes. "Tony--he wasn't with you. He didn't drink the tea." 

"No," Steve says, slowly and she nods, once. 

"That is very helpful, Captain. I will be in touch." 

Shuri kills the feed before he can response, leaving him staring at an empty patch of air, and he does, mouth hanging open for a long moment and then he curses, heartfelt and furious. 

She's got no fucking answers and they've got no way home. 

He touches the cloud of grief, and shivers, pulling back at the cold, energy sapping light. 

"Captain, the team is awaiting you in the living room," JARVIS says, and Steve sighs. Leans down and presses a kiss to Tony's forehead before he goes to tell the team the truth. 

~*~ 

They're all waiting. 

No. 

Bucky isn't. There is a Bucky shaped hole in the space near Natasha's feet, and her arm is looped possessively around Clint's shoulders. 

He thinks that's something he should think about--he needs to find Bucky--but a wave of subconscious grief rolls over him and he shivers. Looks at Rhodey. 

"What happened." 

"JARVIS briefed you on the major changes--he showed you the wedding and the pictures and confirmed events that have happened. But he didn't think to tell you about Pepper." 

Steve's stomach drops, and his knees give out. 

"She--" 

"Yeah. Christmas time. Tony tried, but--he was out of the country at the time, with you." 

There isn't any accusation in his voice--but it still hits like a blow, like he failed. "She left control to me and Tony in the event of her death--a failsafe if whatever killed her took Tony too. And I've handled day to day--JARVIS does a lot--it never occured to me that he wouldn't  _ know."  _

Christ. He can't feel Tony's panic and grief, a low dim light that doesn't abate, even as he drifts, unconscious. This world might be good and bright and one they are both happy in--but Pepper is written in Tony's DNA, a part of his soul the way Rhodey was and he couldn't hope to be. 

"Why is this surprising?" Natasha asks, her voice even and dangerous. 

Steve takes a breath. He wishes Bucky were here. He thinks it would be easier--not easy, not truly, but easier. 

“I’m not your Steve,” he says, and he has a split second before Nat is on him to realize this was a very bad idea. 

~*~ 

There’s a cocoon of warmth around him when he wakes. He’s groggy the kind of disconnected aware that means someone drugged him and he groans, a small noise that makes his head ache, pain ricocheting with the hoise, an endless noise. 

The warmth shifts, honey cotton blankets and he blinks. “Steve,” he mumbles. 

“I’m here, Tony.” 

There are tears in the corners of his eyes. He’s here. But Pepper--

“It’s not real,” he says, breathes, and he feels Steve-- _ Steve _ not just the too warm presence in his head--shift, curl around him. “Please--please, I don’t want--” 

“Sweetheart, I am so sorry,” Steve breathes and he knows. It’s real. Pepper is gone.

He cries, sobbing like a child, like he didn’t even when he  _ was _ a child, and Steve holds him through it all. 

Wonderland was supposed to be beautiful--a perfect utopia with the family neither of them had ever dared ask for and both had wanted. 

But this--he didn’t want a world without Pepper in it. 

~*~ 

Tony clings to Rhodey in the next few days. The team is withdrawn, almost hostile. After Nat tried to stab him and the Hulk made an appearance while he tried to explain the situation--he's giving them their space, letting them sort through their feelings and hoping like hell Rhodey and Bucky can do some damage control. 

He has his hands full with Tony and the almost mindless grief. He keeps waiting for it to abate--and it doesn't. It's an endless sea of seething darkness, a grief so wide and deep it's threatening to consume them both. It reminds him, most, of his own grief, when he woke up in the future and realized everyone he knew and loved was gone. 

Rhodey helps. He holds Tony when the other man is incoherent with sobbing, and redirects him when he's manic with grief, and when Tony goes cold and quiet, blank, nothing to indicate the terrible grief just below the surface, Rhodey is there then too, holding him and murmuring constantly in Tony's ear. 

He clings to Rhodey and when Steve crawls in their bed at the end of the day, the man who curls into his arms smells like stale sweat and bitter tears and cologne the Colonel prefers. 

He hates it. 

He misses Tony. 

He wishes Bucky would come home.

He is doing his damndest to ignore the simple truth--he doesn't want to deal with this. 

Pepper--their Pepper, the one that they left behind in their world--was a force of nature, all fire and fierceness wrapped around a iron core strong enough that it bent even Tony to her will. 

She was soft too. 

Not often. Not in a way that was real--because Pepper was almost as good at managing the public, presenting a polished mask that meant nothing she didn't want it to mean as Tony was. Hers slipped, sometimes--when someone threatened Tony. 

He was her Achilles heel. 

She was soft for him, her eyes bright and her smile real, and he remembers seeing them--Tony and Pepper and Rhodey, voices quiet and her laughter a bright splash in the dark penthouse, and wine stained lips curving into a smile when she saw Steve. 

It was strange and beautiful and indefinable, what they had. And now she was gone and Tony had Rhodey, clung to Rhodey--but it was an off-balance tricycle, and he didn't know what he would do--what Tony would do--if it crashed. 

~*~ 

Three days after the world comes crashing, Tony crawls out of bed and dresses himself in a suit. "I want to see her," he says, simple and implacable, and Steve nods. 

"Ok, Tony." 

~*~ 

After, Tony leans into him as they drive away from the cemetery, shivering, and Steve holds him, quiet and aching and lost--completely unsure how to help him. “What do you need?” he asks, softly and Tony trembles against him. 

“I need her. I need--I need Peter and Rhodey.” 

“Peter?” 

Tony makes a noise, aggravated, and curls closer. “JARVIS will find him.” 

Steve nods, content for now, not to push. Tony doesn’t need Steve to press. 

“Do you want the team?” he asks, because Tony hasn’t. Not since he found out Pepper was dead--he’s been isolating himself, and the team has been angry enough to let him. 

“Yes,” Tony whispers. 

He nods, and reaches for his phone. It vibrates with an incoming message before he can open it, and he frowns. 

Nat’s distress code. 

“Nat,” he says when she answers, and Tony whines against his side, burrowing closer at the sharp note in his voice. “What’s the matter?”

“We have a situation,” she says. 

“A mission?” 

She hesitates, and then, “Of a sort.” 

“We’re thirty minutes out. Tony can get us there faster with the suit, though.” 

“It’s--we don’t need the suit. It’s not an Avengers situation.” 

“What  _ is _ it?” Steve snaps, his voice short and sharp. 

She sighs. “It’s the Winter Soldier.” 

~*~ 

There’s a Bucky shaped hole in the Tower--there has been for days and he’s been focused on Tony, on the storm of grief that wrapped him, and now--now he’s staring at footage from Tripoli and his stomach is churning. 

The cartel’s warehouse looks like a slaughterhouse 

“What happened?” he asks, his mouth dry. 

Natasha shifts. “Clint’s mission--he came across Ronin.” 

He frowns. “Isn’t  _ he  _ Ronin?” 

Natasha makes a noise, short tempered and irritated. “Not anymore. His brother took the name when Clint joined SHIELD.” 

As differences in worlds go--not terrible. 

“Barney doesn’t adhere to the same standards Clint did. He’s made...enemies. And those enemies are focused on Clint.” 

“What does any of this have to do with Bucky?” Steve demands, watching the footage again. 

“Clint protected Bucky,” Natasha says, slowly. “And now--Winter is protecting Clint.” 

“By  _ slaughtering  _ a cartel?” 

“Since that cartel put a price on his head--yes,” Natasha snaps. “What the hell is wrong with you, Steve? He’s protecting Clint. Protecting the  _ team.”  _

“What’s wrong with me?” he echoes. He points at the screen, where Bucky looks like something ripped straight from his nightmares, dead-eyed and brutally efficient as he tore through a cartel like tissue paper. 

The man on screen--that’s not his best friend, who laughs and teases and pulls his punches, his eyes bright with worry. This is Hydra’s weapon, the mindless killer that he faced on a bridge in DC. “ _ That _ is my problem.” 

“Which is why we need Tony,” Natasha says, irritable. “To scrub the footage.” 

Steve goes still. Turns that demand--it’s a demand, not a question, not a request, a demand, sharp and impatient, and it digs at him--around in his mind. Licks his lips, and then, cautiously. “You want Tony to scrub footage of Bucky killing twenty people. While he grieves the death of his best friend, you want him to commit a felony.” Steve blinks, and then, “And you think  _ I  _ would, what,  _ let _ him?” 

Natasha’s expression goes stormy, furious. “This is for  _ Bucky,”  _ she snarls, and Steve shakes his head. 

“Fine,” she growls, and stalks away. Bruce hovers in the space she left, his eyes wide and concerned. 

“She’s worried,” Bruce says, softly, gently. “She always worries when Bucky does this.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything as the other man turns back to his tea. 

He reaches for his phone instead, and calls Rhodey. 

“There’s a situation,” he says, ignoring the way Bruce looks up at him. “Can you come?” 

~*~ 

The quinjet is silent as it streaks across the sky, the ocean a silent seething mirror. Natasha had been furious about being left behind, but Steve wasn't sure he could handle Bucky and whatever the hell he was going to find in Tripoli on top of her fury and the pervading worry for Tony. 

He shouldn't be leaving him. He knew it. But Bucky was on the other side of the damn planet and he  _ needed _ Steve. 

He'd left Tony for Bucky once, though. And that mistake was haunting him, impossible to forget the further he flew. 

"JARVIS, do we know where he is?" he asks, as the quinjet nears the African continent. 

"Sergeant Barnes has made his way to the Avenger safehouse first established by Mr. Barton. Coordinates are on your phone, Captain." 

"Thanks," he mutters and then, softly. "Is this normal? Bucky going rogue like this--going Winter Soldier?" 

"Not so often as to be concerning," the AI says, and Steve's stomach churns. 

That it happened at all was concerning. 

That the entire team seemed fine with it--that was terrifying. 

~*~ 

He gets two steps into the safe house before a big body shoves him into the wall and pins him there with a metal arm, a razor sharp knife resting on the skin just below his eyeball. 

"Buck," he chokes out, and slaps, ineffectual, at his best friend. "Buck,  _ stop _ ." 

The knife digs  _ in _ , slicing through skin before Bucky blinks. 

The ice shatters and Winter vanishes, and Bucky stands there, a knife in Steve's skin, choking him. 

"Shit," he gasps, dropping the knife and Steve both and Steve hits his ass, gasping and coughing as he rolls to his hands and knees. "Shit, Stevie, I'm so sorry." 

He's sorry. 

"You're  _ sorry _ ?" Steve gasps. Shifts up to his knees and then shoves to his feet, right up in Bucky's face, and it's disconcerting, just a little, with the tac gear and black eyes and there's still *blood on him. "You're fucking  _ sorry _ ? For which part, Buck? Dragging me away from Tony when he needs me, or almost stabbing me in the goddamn eye or slaughtering a fucking cartel because they looked at Clint wrong?" he snarls. 

Bucky licks his lips. "I think the right answer is all of the above--but if we're being honest--sorry I stabbed you?" 

He punches Bucky. 

It's not the first time--won't be the last--but it feels damn good, as they go down in a mess of flailing limbs and sharp jabs, spitting curses all the while. Bucky isn't fighting back, really, more keeping Steve at bay, and there's no weapons coming into play. It's almost as harmless as when they were kids and Steve weighed a buck five, and Bucky could hold him down with one hand if he tried. 

"What the hell," Bucky pants, when they finally wind down. He's got a black eye and a bleeding lip and it felt like one of his ribs gave the third time Steve punched him. 

Since he can't see out of one his eyes and his shoulder is still out of socket, he feels like they're about even. "Don't be fucking dense," he slurs, and Bucky huffs. 

There's something fond, amused, in it, and Steve--

"What the hell, Buck," he says, again, softer, with feeling. Almost desperate for an answer and he doesn't know what kind of answer there even is to give. "Why the hell would you let Winter out?" 

He's quiet, for a long time, and then, "Your Winter--he's gone, isn't he." 

Bucky's voice is low, almost hurt, and it hits him suddenly--Winter is a *person, to Bucky, an entity not quite himself, and to hear he's just *gone. 

"Yeah," he says, softly. Gently. 

Bucky goes tense for a moment, and ice flickers behind his eyes--and then he goes limp. Almost boneless against the hard dirty floor. "I bet that's healthier," he says, dry. 

"Bucky--mine--he went back on the ice. Voluntarily. We have some folks looking at helping him, to get rid of the trigger words. They used them, once, and--it was real bad. I think it scares him, that he doesn't know what would happen, what he could be made to do, if he were triggered again." 

“Tony fixed that,” Bucky says. “After Clint and Tasha brought me home--he made some binary retrofitting thing--called it BARF. And the triggers are still there--he can’t get rid of them completely, but he overwrote them, gave me new triggers.” Bucky chews his lip for a minute, then adds, hesitantly, “He’s the only one who has them.” 

Steve blinks at him, laying bloody and sad on the floor next to him. “You trust him that much?” 

“Of course,” Bucky says, and the thing of it is--Steve believes him. 

“I’m glad,” he says honestly. 

“But?” 

He doesn't answer, not at first. He isn't entirely sure how to answer. 

"Let's go home," he says, instead, and Bucky brightens. Steve smiles, and they haul each other upright, groaning and cursing. 

Sparks of black light lift in the gloom that is Tony, and he tenses. JARVIS doesn't say anything, though, and he lets out his breath. "Shower. I'll clean up. I wanna be wheels up within the hour." 

"Steve," Bucky says, "What happened?" 

He shakes his head and says, "I'll tell you on the jet." 

Bucky nods, and goes. 

~*~ 

It takes fifty two minutes before they're in the air. The black sparks have gone up three more times, enough that he's anxious and on edge as they streak across the sky toward New York, but not so much that he's willing to call, just yet. JARVIS is still silent. 

Most of his injuries have healed, or are knitting themselves back together, and Bucky groans a little, as he lowers himself down next to Steve. "Gonna tell me now?" 

Steve flicks a look at him. "Things are different here," he says and Bucky nods.

"You knew that--we talked about the timeline--"

"No. Not just the timeline. I mean, yes, that too. But--you. You're different here. You wouldn't do this in my world. You'd die first. And I mean that very literally. Natasha and you tolerate each other, at best. You spent maybe five minutes with Clint and that was at the airport, so I don't even think it counts." 

Bucky is staring at him, quizzical and Steve huffs. "The team here is  _ different _ . And yes, we're all happier, which is what I saw. You're healthier. Tony is, and the entire team cares about him, and I let that distract me." 

"From what?" Bucky asks, softly. 

"From the other shoe dropping," Steve says, grimly. "Pepper is dead, Bucky." 

"She's not in your world?" 

"No--Tony and Rhodey saved her from Killian. She's fine--running SI and keeping Tony on his toes and last I heard, they were broken up but that never lasts with those two." 

"Pepper is dating Tony?" Bucky demands, his eyes wide. 

"And this--you just slaughtered a cartel!" 

Bucky frowns. "They wanted to hurt Clint." 

"Did they?" Steve asks, sharply. "Did they or is that what Clint was afraid of and you went off without intel and did something you can't take back." 

"Even if they didn't--they're a cartel, Steve. They're not people to lose sleep over." 

Steve blinks at him. 

Because that sentence--that just came from Bucky and he  _ means _ it. 

He opens his mouth and closes it again, because he has no fucking idea what to say to Bucky. 

But as he turns back to the control panel, he realizes--he felt closer to the Winter Soldier than he does to his best friend. 

~*~ 

"Captain," JARVIS says, jerking Steve out of his light doze. They're nearly home and there's an urgency in JARVIS that makes Steve's blood run cold. "Captain, Sir--" 

He gasps as those black sparkles  _ explode _ across the back of his eyelids and he can distantly hear Bucky shouting, but all he can feel is the blinding grief and bone deep fury and he gasps, " _ Tony _ ." 

Then the black rushes up, spangled with darkness, and slams into him life a fist. 


	3. Chapter 3

The truth is--he knows that his grief is misplaced. That he is grieving the loss of someone that isn't  _ his _ . 

His Pepper is fine--Extremis worked out of her system, beautiful and untouched by the shit that comes with being Iron Man. She's alive, happy, living in California as they both process the final split in their attempts at romance. 

It doesn't make the grief or the  _ guilt _ any easier to bear. 

Doesn't mean he feels her loss any less, the cutting knowledge that where she has always been, there is now a gulf, a yawning empty space that has always been rock solid and steady. 

He clings to Rhodey and JARVIS, desperate to know they are safe, they are  _ here _ , with him, and they hold him as the worst of it, the first terrible crushing wave of grief crests and almost drowns him. 

~*~ 

After. 

When he can breathe through that grief, he rolls over, and presses his face against Rhodey's sweatpants clad thigh. The material is scratchy, nubby under his skin, the shitty Air Force issue sweats that Tony loathes and Rhodey adores. "Where is Steve?" 

"Bucky needed an extract," Rhodey says, petting a hand through his hair as he reads one handed. 

He blinks. It would sting, he thinks, under normal circumstances. If he could feel anything beyond numb pain. It isn't surprising, that Steve left him for Bucky. 

It's what Steve is consistently good at. 

"JARVIS," he says. "Peter Parker. What did you find?" 

"Who?" Rhodey asks. He stirs, shifting upright as Tony does. "Who is Peter Parker?" 

"Kid--actually a kid--that I have interning, in my world. He's brilliant." 

"And you're trying to find him because..." 

"Because he's an enhanced--or he will be. And I care about him--" 

"You care in your world," Rhodey says, gently. "But you--"

"I need to know he's ok," Tony says, his voice shaking. "I need to know you and Happy and JARVIS are ok and that he’s ok--Peter needs to be ok." 

His voice cracks, anxious and afraid, and Tony bolts out of his bed. He's pacing and his fingers dig at his arc reactor, afraid. 

"Ok," Rhodey says, catching his hand, dragging it down and squeezing. "Ok, we'll check on him." 

Tony trembles, a minute shaking and Rhodey tips his head up address JARVIS. "J, what did you find on Peter Parker?" 

There’s a pulse of silence and Tony’s stomach drops. “Colonel, I do not think that wise to share at this time.” 

“JARVIS,” Tony says, sharply. 

“Tony, maybe we should wait--” 

“Override, JARVIS. Primary user code Alpha James Beta Thirteen.” 

There’s a pulse of silence, and then, JARVIS says, clearly reluctance, “Peter B Parker, born August 10, 2001 to Richard and Mary Parker, died in a plane crash that claimed the lives of all onboard. Included in the deaths were Dr Richard Parker and geneticist Mary Parker.” 

There’s silence, sharp and ringing and he hears, distantly, Rhodey breath a curse--and then it crashes into him, so hard he can’t  _ breathe  _ and all of the grief, that sharp swamping thing he had been drowning under drags him under. 

There’s a pulse of heat, volcanic hot  _ worry _ and  _ fear _ and then he collapses into Rhodey’s arms. 

~*~ 

Rhodey hums, when he holds Tony. It's something he's done since MIT, and it makes Tony laugh, this wet, broken noise. "I did that, for him." 

It makes Rhodey stop, hesitation in his voice, and he says, carefully, "Peter?" 

Tony nods against Rhodey's chest, digging his fists into the older man's shirt. Clinging because he needs that grounding, right now. More than he's ever needed it, he needs it right now. "After--I recruited him, Rhodey. I dragged him to Germany to face Cap and Barnes and all the rest, and I knew I shouldn't--he was a baby. But I needed him, and I knew he'd say yes." 

"Why?" Rhodey asks, careful. 

"Because he worships me. Kid's got daddy issues to rival mine, and he's a baby genius. He worships me, did even before I dragged him into real superheroing. But--I was gonna take care of him." He laughs, and it drags at his throat, a rough hurt thing. "I was gonna--fuck, Rhodey, I  _ wanted _ to take care of him. I wanted to give him some stability and support." 

He's quiet, then, "When you were in the hospital--during all the surgeries and shit. I went after Steve and ended up in Siberia. And Peter stayed. He didn't have to--he got his ass kicked by Cap and he was done, right, he could have checked out. And he stayed, right there next to you, until Happy put me in the bed in your room. He did what I couldn't, platypus." 

"Tones," Rhodey says, soft, and he closes his eyes. It hurts so much it's almost stopped hurting. But Rhodey's arms tighten around him, and his lips press against Tony's hair and he doesn't say that it's not the same, it's not his Peter, it's not real--he only holds him close and murmurs, "I'm so sorry." 

~*~ 

He feels it, when Steve arrives. Not just the air shifting in the penthouse and his bedroom, but the way that his mind goes icy, Arctic cold wrapping around him so deep and pervasive he shivers in Rhodey's arms. 

Then he's there, cold in his mind and hot at his back, and Tony shudders away from the big hand on his back, sliding up to cup the back of his neck. 

"What happened?" 

"Oh, you care?" Tony spits. 

He feels Rhodey tense under him and the stutter stop of Steve's hand and he  _ knows _ he should tone it back, that Steve did nothing  _ wrong _ . 

But Peter is dead, Pepper is  _ dead _ and even in this world where their epic love was enough to fix all the shit they'd gotten wrong at home--Steve  _ still _ chose Barnes. 

He was always going to choose Barnes. 

For a moment, Tony'd forgotten that, managed to convince himself that it wasn't true, that Steve  _ cared _ about him. 

"I'm a fucking idiot," he mumbles, and Steve's hand on his neck tightens, reeling him away from Rhodey. He scrambles to hold on, and Steve tugs, pulls Tony into his lap. 

"Excuse us, a moment, Colonel," he says, politely, and Rhodey hesitates, just for a moment, before he nods and leaves. 

Tony waits until the door shuts behind Rhodey--no need to advertise just how badly Mommy and Daddy were about to be fighting--and then scrambles from Steve's lap, shivering as that icy cold spreads, crystalline frozen swamping him. 

He shoves at his mental walls, wanting so damn badly to keep him out, shoving him  _ out _ . 

"I'm sorry," Steve says, lowly. 

And it makes him pause. Just for a second. Just long enough for him to go on. "I didn't want to leave--Bucky--" 

"He needed you," Tony spits. "Never mind that my best friend is dead, that my--" he chokes, swallows, tears burning in his eyes. 

He doesn't have words for how much and what Peter is to him. 

He wants, desperately, to find Harley and is so damn scared to that he can't bear to ask JARVIS to run the search. 

"The Winter Soldier killed thirty cartel members in Tripoli," Steve says, and Tony freezes. "I didn't--I wasn't going to find Buck because he was having a moment, Tony. I never would have left if I didn't think it was a life or death thing." 

"Did Hydra--" 

"Not that I can tell," Steve says, sighing. He reaches for Tony. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't want to leave you." 

He blinks, tears burning off the anger, regret still a chill in his mind and he suddenly _can't_. He can't tolerate Steve's careful concern or the crushing grief, or the thoughts that won't _shut_ _up_ , in his head. 

He shifts, straddling Steve and kissing him, hard and hungry, licking into his mouth when he makes a surprised little noise and biting at his lower lip when it shifts, changes into something hungry and startled and pleased. That earns him hands on his hips and a low rumble of approval and Tony shifts, rolls his hips to catch Steve's cock. It's desperate. 

It's desperate and hungry and  _ obvious _ , and Steve, bless his patriotic little heart, doesn't say a damn word. Just holds him tight and then holds him down, and when Tony shakes apart, Steve holds him together. 

~*~ 

"Steve?" Tony says, later, when the Tower is still and dark and the city lights reflect against the glass. He stirs behind Tony, naked skin brushing against his own, and for a moment, Tony wants to shiver, press back into it, beg for more. He shoves that down, and tights the walls keeping his emotions at bay. 

"Steve, there's something wrong here," he says. "It's not just Pepper and Peter--" 

"I know," Steve murmurs. 

"How deep does it go?" Tony wonders, rolling to look at Steve. His eyes are worried oceans in the darkness and for once, Tony isn't afraid of drowning. "How badly is Wonderland broken?" 

"I think--I think it's pretty damn bad, Tony. Tasha wanted me to wipe the footage, of what Winter did to that cartel. Not bring him home--make sure he wasn't caught." 

It makes something unpleasant and familiar buzz in his brain, and Steve says, "It's not just the world, sweetheart--it's the team. There's something very wrong with the Avengers." 

Tony curls into him, and he can feel Steve trembling, and there are tears in his voice--he doesn’t know if it’s for Peter or Pepper or the whole damn world--when he says, “I want to go  _ home.”  _

~*~

"I can't hide forever," Tony says. Steve is staring at him, an unhappy expression on his pretty face, lips turned into a frown. "I need to join the team. It's not fair for you to deal with everything." 

"You have enough," Steve says. 

"Steve," Tony says, sharply, and he goes quiet, his eyes wide and hurt, a flash of heat quickly banked. Tony sighs, pushing out his apology before he shifts and takes his hand, squeezing gently. "If I don't--we don't find out what's wrong with this fucking Wonderland. And we don't go home." 

That makes Steve relax, a little, and he nods. His mind is still a chill of unhappiness and a campfire warmth of protectiveness, but his arms drop and he steps aside and that--that's enough of a win that Tony ignores the emotions in his mind and leaves the penthouse. 

The team is gathered for breakfast. Rhodey is there, drinking orange juice and glaring at his tablet, and it makes sense, now, why his best friend is here and not on a military base or in the Pentagon. 

He shoves aside the guilt tinged grief, that never questioned it, or Pepper's absence, and focuses on the pot of coffee Clint is holding. 

Clint is watching him, eyes narrowed. 

Radiating distrust. 

None of the team has moved from where they're scattered around the room. Bruce is staring at Tony with green tinged blankness. Thor looks somewhere between furious and  _ hurt _ . Natasha is ignoring them completely, dumping fruit into the blender and turning it on without ever acknowledging them. 

It feels, almost, like being at home. 

"I'm sorry," he says, and Clint snorts. "We didn't tell you because--" 

"Because you didn't trust us," Bruce snaps, the grumble of the Hulk in his words. Tony arches an eyebrow and shakes his head. "No. Because you're happy." 

That makes him pause, and a frown flickers on Thor's lips. 

"You thought lying to us was a good way to keep us happy?" Natasha says, her voice a silky menace. 

"In my world--our world--none of you live in the Tower," he says. "None of you are  _ speaking _ to me. Thor and Bruce--I haven't seen either of you in two years. The rest of you are fugitives after a--" he glances at Steve quick and then away. "We don't talk. We aren't a family. And it's because of me--so yes, Tasha. I wanted to keep you happy, because you have something here that we can only dream of. And maybe I should have told the truth--maybe we both should have. But you love Tony Stark, here. And the Natasha I know? Never did." 

She's staring at him, eyes wide and pale, more expression than he's ever seen on her face and he realizes abruptly that she is--she has always been more expressive than the counterpart of his world. 

Wonderland and all its tiny differences. 

"I wanted to believe this could be real," he says, and the guilt of that confession almost chokes him. 

~*~ 

The team doesn’t seem to know what to do with Tony’s confession or his honesty. Steve stays with them as Tony retreats, but they’re not talking to him either. After weeks of seeing them so united, so effortlessly a  _ team _ , seeing them with fractures and division is an aching sort of hurt, like pressing on a bruise just to feel it throb. 

He leaves them to sulk and lick their wounds and retreats to the lab. 

Tony is a walled off darkness in his mind, has been since he found out Peter was dead, something that's bothering Steve the longer it lasts. He nudges at the wall as he keys in in his access code and gets a spike of violet light warning him off. His lips compress. 

"You know, we're supposed to be helping each other," he says, sharply. 

"Good. Go through these files," Tony says, not looking away from the display in front of him. 

"What is this?" Steve asks, sitting down. He nudges a plate of cheese and deli meat at Tony, eyeing him until the older man took a piece of cheddar and nibbled at it absently. 

"I'm doing some research," he says.

"About..." Steve says, and Tony huffs. Tosses some stats into the air. 

"When the Battle of New York happened, how much of the damages was paid for by the city--or the federal government?" 

Steve blinks at him, not sure of the answer to that. It doesn't matter because Tony is already rattling on. "FEMA set up camps, to assist in the aftermath--and there was never a rush on them. FEMA packed up eight weeks after the invasion with a surplus of supplies. Do you know why?" 

"Because the Stark Relief Foundation," Steve says. He knows how it shook out on the Avenger's end. He knows that both Tony and he himself were on the ground helping recovery efforts. Tony said it was because New York was  _ his _ , and Steve had felt that claim echoed deep enough he never questioned it, just put himself at Tony's disposal for weeks before he finally escaped on the back his Indian. 

"The SRF was the first iteration of what became the Maria Stark Foundation. That's where we funnel everything donated to the Avengers and disaster assistance. Anytime we go in and blow something up in the process of saving someone else--that's where the money comes to fix the damage. To put lives back together once we've saved them." 

"I know all this," Steve says, impatiently, "I was on the Board for the foundation." 

Tony snaps his fingers and points. "Exactly. The MSF charter requires three Avengers on the Board. Why?" 

"Accountability," Steve says, because Tony's said it often enough over the years. He was obsessed with accountability. 

"Right. We need to see what we did, what we saved and destroyed. Or we become complacent." 

Steve nods and Tony's smile goes sharp. "They don't have the MSF." 

He goes still, eyes narrowing, and Tony throws a sheet up, numbers scrolling endlessly. "I dug, Cap. There's nothing in Stark Industries earmarked for disaster relief. Everything for the Avengers is for exactly that--the Avengers. Safehouses and equipment and the compound upstate, and vehicles and upkeep--the number is staggering, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what I was spending at home, with the Foundation." 

"Then--" his heart is pounding, and Tony flinches away from him, away from whatever's spilling in his mind. "What's happening to the people caught in the crossfire?" 

"Nothing," Tony says, and it drops into the room like a silent bomb, sitting heavy for a moment before the meaning detonates, ricochets out and around. 

"No," 

"The Avengers don't take public responsibility for any damage incurred during their missions. It falls on the local and federal governments." 

"But--"

"It's not just that," Tony says, and he pulls up footage. Steve's stomach roils, because how can it get  _ worse _ ? 

The footage is grainy, cellphone footage. Clint and Bucky are firing into a horde of what looks like oversized rats, and he can hear the ragged breathing of what has to be civilians. 

It's a standard mission, although the civilians are a little close for Steve's liking. 

Then Bucky gets swarmed and his gut clenches, and Clint--

Clint stops shooting into the horde, snatches a knife from Bucky's ankle sheath and tears into the rats, dispatching them. 

The rats swarm the street, and Steve's stomach pitches, gagging as he hears screaming, too close, the panicked cursing and--

Tony cuts the footage. "They walked away, Steve. They gave up the street and walked away. War Machine firebombed it. That footage was uploaded from a dead man's phone." 

Steve swallows hard, and Tony shoves a trash can at him. "If you need to throw up--I sure as hell did." 

He can  _ hear _ it, still, the scrabble of claws on the street and the shrieking cut off abruptly, and--he gags and is messily and nosily sick. 

Tony waits, patiently. 

When he finally sits up, his hand is shaking, and he feels achy in a way that throwing up always leaves him. Wrung out and empty. "What the hell, Tony?" he says, because it's the only thing he can think to say. 

"The Avengers here--I've had JARVIS analyze the footage of our missions. There's a goal, every time. Containment and defeat--but the primary objective is the safety of the team. If that's jeopardized--Steve, it's  _ bad _ ." 

"How bad?" 

Tony looks pale, but angry and he knows. He  _ knows _ what he's going to say, even though it's two years too soon and under the wrong circumstances. Sokovia hasn't happened. If they're lucky, it  _ won't _ . 

"The world governments are drafting an early version of the Accords." 

"And,” Steve nudges. 

To his credit, Tony doesn't dissemble. He taps a few keys and Steve's phone buzzes. "They could arrest us, for having a copy of that," he says. "But Steve--if you thought what they wanted to do to us at home was bad? It's nothing compared to these Accords. And the thing is--this team  _ deserves _ these restrictions." 

Tony lurches away from Steve, pale purple fireworks lighting up his mind, frustrated anger. “Sokovia isn’t going to happen-- _ Ultron _ isn’t, because there’s no--” he huffs. They never really talked about it, what drove him to build the Legion and Ultron, and maybe that’s the hairline fractures that split the team, the distance and distrust between them, but he doesn’t want to talk about it now. Still. Steve is staring at him, wide-eyed and expectant and Tony exhales. 

“After New York, the team scattered.  _ Ours _ did. And I was alone.” 

“Tony,” Steve says, his voice aching and Tony shakes his head. Forces a smile he doesn’t really feel and ignores the stretch of heat that stings like a cut. 

“This isn’t--it’s not an accusation, Steve. I was alone, and I was a  _ mess. _ I saw something up there, and it terrified me. It’s why I built the Iron Legion. It’s why I built suit after suit after suit.” 

“You destroyed them,” Steve says, softly. Pepper is a landmine he doesn’t want to touch but can’t quite ignore. 

“I did. To make her happy--but it was never gonna stick, because I was still dreaming about this army coming for us. I didn’t talk to Pepper about it, it was too wrapped up in avenging and she hates that, and there was no one else.” 

“So you built the Legion and you created Ultron,” Steve says slowly. 

“Because I wanted to protect us.” 

“What’s different here?” Steve asks. “Stark still flew that nuke into space, he still saw what you did.” 

“But he had you,” Tony says, and golden sparkles hit that wall between them, triumphant and exhausted. “He had you and you--god, you and your fucking optimism, you’d talk me down. You’d convince me it was going to be ok, that we could fight him.” 

“You don’t think we can,” Steve says. 

Tony shakes his head. “No. When they come--and they will--we can’t stand against them, Steve. There’s too many.” 

Steve chews on his lip, turning that over and Tony says, quietly, “Stark--the Avengers--it’s not that they don’t care about the world they’re protecting. It’s that they have something they care about  _ more. _ ” 

“The team,” Steve says, softly and Tony nods. 

~*~ 

Bucky finds him, later. Sits next to Tony on the roof, and Tony makes a quiet noise as Bucky leans his head onto Tony’s shoulder. The closeness between them, that Bucky slips into his personal space without thought, still startles Tony, in moments like this. 

“Steve told me about Pepper and Peter. I’m real sorry, boss.” 

“It’s not real, not in my world. That has to mean something, right?” Tony says, and Bucky watches him with big eyes, searching for the lie. “Hey, Bucky?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Why’d you do it?” 

Bucky is quiet for a moment. He doesn’t pretend, though, that he doesn’t understand. Tony appreciates that. “They hurt Clint.” 

“They  _ could _ hurt Clint,” Tony corrects, gently, and Bucky frowns. 

There’s pure puzzlement in his eyes, like he doesn’t understand why Tony would make that distinction. “Now they can’t,” Bucky says. 

“But--you hurt people. People who hadn’t done anything yet.” 

“But Clint is safe,” Bucky says. 

There’s cold trickling down his spine and he knows, he  _ knows _ the answer to this--but he asks anyway. 

“What would you--the whole team--do, if you knew someone wanted to restrict us. Not to put us behind bars or stop us--just, maybe stop us from doing things like you did, with the cartel, or requiring us to take responsibility when people are hurt.” 

“We save more than we don’t,” Bucky says, and it’s dismissive, and casual, and it  _ hurts _ , more than he thought it would. 

“Who is it?” he asks, and Tony blinks. Winter peers at him, fingers settling around Tony’s wrist, metal resting against his pulse, and he shivers at the empty gaze and the friendly touch. “Who wants to hurt us?” 

Tony licks his lips, and he lies. “No one, Bucky.” 

~*~

“Captain Rogers,” Shuri says, and her lips are tight, an expression of unhappiness that Steve recognizes because he’s seen her wear it before, when she’s working on Bucky’s arm. It’s the expression she wears when she doesn’t like whatever answers she’s found, and it makes fear churn in Steve’s belly.

Next to him, Tony straightens, concern sparking golden in his mind. “What’s wrong?”

Shuri’s lips purse. “I believe I know what happened. In part—I cannot explain all of it. Although, I have suspicions.” She shifts, standing up, her fingers drumming anxious on the worktable in her lab. “The heart shaped herb is used to access the other planes, to open the mind to those who have passed on. What you told me, Captain, is best explained by the herb—a tea brewed from it would allow you to access another plane.” Her frown deepens. “What it doesn’t explain is how you were able to draw Mr. Stark into that plane with you, and how you accessed a different universe—this isn’t just the astral plane, it’s stepping  _ into _ the multiverse.”

“You can’t do that,” Tony says, and it’s not a question.

Shuri looks a little annoyed that she can’t, but she shrugs. “My tech is good, but no. We’re not traversing the multiverse.”

“Would you be able to achieve that in two years?” Steve asks.

“Not likely. Especially since it’s not something I’m trying to do.” She tips her head. “What do you know about the masters of the mystic arts?”

Tony goes very still. There’s a burst of blinding red in his mind, and Steve flinches away from that kind of anger, his eyes wide as he looks over.

“I see you are familiar with them,” Shuri murmurs. “They are the only order I know with the ability or skill to manipulate the multiverse. If my counterpart is responsible for your presence here, I would say that she had help.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Tony mutters and she gives him a sympathetic smile.

“If this is the work of the Order—it won’t be undone simply by going to them.”

“No. But yelling at that asshole in a cape will make me feel better,” Tony says, smiling savagely and Shuri smirks.

“I am afraid I won’t deter you from that—I am not best pleased by the order, just now.”

“Thank you for the update, Princess.”

She nods, and Tony calls to JARVIS, killing the connection and leaving the workshop in silence.

“Who is he?” Steve asks. “The caped asshole.”

“Doctor Strange. The new Sorcerer Supreme.”

“And we dislike him because of the cape, or the fact that he’s an asshole?”

Tony snorts, a firework of golden sparks brightening their mind, brilliant amusement. “We dislike him because he’s a pompous asshole. He was a surgeon, before an accident ruined his hands. Good enough to earn the ego, and too damn aware of how good he was. He always flirted with Pepper at charity galas. He stopped by the Compound a few weeks ago—opened a goddamn portal in the middle of my workshop and let me know that he was in New York and that I needed to fix the Avengers.”

Steve looks up sharply, frowning. “Why?”

Tony shrugs. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

~*~

“He isn’t here.”

The woman is small, almost frail looking, giant eyes and tight mouth in a severe, strangely beautiful face. She is pretty in a way that is stark and almost alien and she’s looking at them with something like amused pity. “He has not yet walked the road that will lead him here.”

“Then who do we see about fixing this.”

“You don’t,” the Ancient One says, simply. “This is not a problem for you to fix, Mr. Stark. There is no enemy to defeat.”

“Then why?” Tony bursts out, a shower of furious scarlet sparks in his mind, and Steve takes his hand, rubbing gentle until the sparks dim and slow and die, and Tony isn’t trembling.

“To witness. To learn. What you have to do—it is important. Both of you have a part to play. If Strange did this—and he did, I can sense his spell all over you—it is important.”

“I don’t want to  _ be  _ here,” Tony says, his voice sharp and aching and Steve wants to pull him close.

The Ancient One smiles, gentle. “I believe, Mr. Stark, that is exactly why you  _ are _ .” She straightens. “It’s ending, soon. The spell has almost run its course.”

“What do we do, until then?” Steve asks.

“You bear witness,” she says, simply.

~*~

He’s quiet, going back to the Tower. Quiet as Steve leads him to the penthouse and strips him out of his clothes and nudges him into bed, curling behind him and cocooning them both in blankets.

“I want to go home,” Tony says. “I don’t want to see anymore here. It  _ hurts _ , Steve.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, his lips brushing hot against Tony’s skin. It draws a shiver out of him, and Tony twists, squirms in Steve’s arms to face him, peering up at him.

“Please,” Tony whispers.

She said—she said it would end soon.

They will go home, him to his shattered team in Wakanda and his brother in ice.

Tony to an empty compound and a mountain of political problems.

They’ll be separate, again, this stolen happiness that doesn’t belong to them given back to its rightful owners, and they won’t have  _ this _ . They won’t curl in a bed that smells of them and sex and happiness.

Tony’s fingers are bruise tight on his shoulder, and he nods, and licks into Tony’s mouth.

The kiss is hungry, almost desperate, the greedy way Tony clutches at him fueling his own fear, and Steve nips at his mouth, swallows down his choked needy noise, trails biting kisses down Tony’s throat and settles between his thighs, rocking down just to hear Tony keen, and for the moment, the dark light glinting in his mind is drowned by white hot pleasure.

~*~

He's curled into Steve's warmth, flirting with the edges of consciousness, when the alarm goes off. It's better than three pots of black coffee for waking him up, a Pavlovian affect that has him bolting out of bed and scrambling for his flight suit. There is come on his belly still, and the skin pulls unpleasantly where it dried and where Steve had licked him clean, after Tony had come on his cock and on his fingers, and Steve had come in his mouth and his ass and finally pulled out to spill across his belly and the arc reactor. 

He wishes they had time to shower, but the alarm is still shrill and insistent, and Steve is reaching for his uniform, scrambling into it. "JARVIS, what are we lookin' at?" Tony calls. 

"JOCASTA is tracking incoming alien ships." 

"And we already checked with Thor, this isn't his brother coming to play happy family?" 

"My first thought was that, sir. The energy readings, however, are not Asgardian and Master Loki seems to actually be in residence." 

Tony pauses at that, and Steve scowls. "What's he doing here?"

"I'm sure we can ask Thor," Tony says, and leans up to peck Steve's cheek. "Gotta get the suit. Meet you in five." 

Steve is already distracted, and Tony jogs quickly to the private elevator, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm against the arc reactor while he waits. Stepping into the workshop, he feels some of the tension gathering in his gut unspool. The suit closing around him feels like coming home, and he sighs a little, feeling it. The comms channel is already filling up with chatter, Hawkeye and Black Widow calling back and forth and readying the quinjet. 

"Where are we going?" Tony asks. 

"Ironman. Looks like the ships are headed for the African continent. Do you--" 

"I'll go ahead," he says. "Try to keep up." 

Hawkeye snorts, and quietly, the Soldier says, "Watch your back, Ironman." 

"Always do, Terminator. Keep my soldier safe." 

With that, and without waiting for Steve to weigh in, he fires the repulsors. "J, plot a course for the African seaboard. See if we can't get a better idea of where we're going." 

Coordinates scroll across the HUD and the suit corrects slightly. A few minutes up, he hears the tell-tale sound of the War Machine armor and grins to himself. "You runnin off alone again, Tones?" Rhodey teases and Tony snorts. 

"Wouldn't if you could keep up, platypus." 

"Chatter," Captain America says, stern. The quinjet can't keep pace with the armor going Mach 2 across the ocean, but they won't be too far behind. 

"Sir, the coordinates--you'll be entering Wakandan airspace." 

Steve breathes a curse, low and heartfelt, and Tony huffs. "Better get the princess on the line. Seems like whatever the hell she wants us to watch, it'll be on her turf." 

~*~ 

Wakanda is just as beautiful as Steve told him it was, just as beautiful as he had dreamed. And that's without even looking at the tech that makes his look almost obsolete. 

He'd have a complex if they didn't have a bigger problem. 

"We fought them already," Clint whines. 

"Well, looks like we're gonna get a chance to do it again. Do we have an ETA on Thor?" Natasha asks. She's fallen into that quiet stillness she gets right before a battle, a wariness and readiness that makes Tony's muscles ache in sympathy. 

"Thor and Loki are five minutes out," JARVIS says smoothly. 

"What exactly are we facing?" T'Challa asks. 

It's hard to remember to address him as Highness. Hard to remember that his father is still king. 

"Are you aware of what happened in New York?" Tony asks, and the Black Panther's eyes widen, just a little. "That. But probably on a bigger scale. They've had time to regroup." 

"Why here?" he asks. "Why not New York?" 

"If I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with your tech. Are you holding anything we might not be aware of?" 

A portal opens, golden and glowing and the Ancient One steps through, her eyes wide and wild. "The mind stone. Where is it?" 

Tony huffs. "Guess that answers that." 

"The--" 

The Ancient One snarls, a vicious expression shattering her calm, and pulls a glowing green gem from thin air. "The Mind Stone. It's here.  _ Where _ ?" 

T'Challa glances at the guard at his side, and then to his sister. His expression is almost flinty when he says, "We found the gem in the hands of Hydra prisoners. A girl and her brother." 

"Shit," Tony whispers, his eyes flicking to Steve. All the pieces clicking into place--the stone and the Maximoffs and the army from outer space. 

"Steve," he says, and the sky, bright blue and brilliant, opens up and spills out hell. 

He doesn't think he's ever going to get used to the sky opening up and spitting things out. A blue beam of light appears and a creature steps from it, alien and other and it's voice rings out across the Wakandan plain, "Thanos will spare your planet destruction, should you surrender the Infinity Stones by choice and lay down your arms." 

"Steve," Tony says, again. There's a hot wall of fury in his mind, Steve's rage burning so bright it leaves him almost shaking. "Steve, we--" 

Lightening shakes the clearing, and the creature smiles as Thor and Loki step onto the field. "Thanos holds three of the six Stones. You will not stop him." 

"We'll try," Steve says.

The creature smiles, wide and pleased and cruel. "You'll die. And Thanos will take his spoils and complete his grand task, and you will have died for nothing."

"And what is it," Natasha asks, suddenly. "What is the grand task that he wants to accomplish?" 

The creature tips his head, curiously. "Balance." 

"What does that--"

"Widow," Steve snaps, and her eyes cut to him, furious and scared. 

"We should  _ hear _ what he has to say!" she insists. "Before we throw ourselves at a fucking army and get ourselves killed." 

"Natasha, he--" 

The sky brightens again and Tony feels his stomach drop. Loki is scrambling away, dragging Thor with him and the inferno of Steve's fury has gone col and banked, a tight control that is almost as terrifying as the giant who steps out of the light. 

"The Maw has promised; I will spare you. I don't seek to kill," Thanos says. "I seek only balance." 

"You seek  _ death _ ," Loki snarls, and his voice is shaking but defiant. "You tell them. Tell them how you sent me and your Chitauri. Where was your balance then, Titan?" 

"You," Thanos says, slowly, "disappoint me, Trickster. I seek to restore balance to the universe. That is all I have ever done. The stones--they will do that." 

"And you'll spare us," Natasha says. 

"He's a  _ liar," _ Loki spits. "His balance doesn't spare anyone. It  _ kills _ indiscriminately, half of all living things. That's not mercy, that's not balance--it's genocide." 

"And overpopulation is what," Thanos says. "Besides a slow march to death?" 

"Our choice," Thor says, tucking his brother behind him. "And not one you can take from us." 

Thanos smiles. 

"Steve," Tony says. "This--we won't win this." 

Steve flicks a glance at him, and Tony does what he hasn't in all the weeks here in Wonderland. He drops his walls, and let's all of his emotions flood out, silver black sparks of fear, white hot fury and the bright red fireworks as everything clicks into place. 

He looks at the Ancient One, wreathed in flickering gold and fear, and the team, standing united. "We give him the stones and he'll kill half the universe." 

"But not us," Natasha says, urgently. 

The words are wrong, twisted, everything Natasha isn't. The make his stomach turn, and he fires, without waiting for the others to argue or Thanos to wax poetic about a more perfect world. 

He fires his repulsor and the Chitauri come pouring down from the sky. 

~*~ 

It's a bloodbath. 

Steve loses track of Tony almost before it begins, and the others are doing their best to hold back the army, but it's a thousand to one. The Wakandan's are being decimated and he can hear Natasha in his comm, demanding he retreat, dragging Clint with her. 

War Machine brings down a space whale and gets swarmed by a horde of Chitauri. 

Clint is picking off the aliens as fast as he can, but he's bleeding from the shoulder and thigh and hobbling as Widow forces them back, away from the front line and the worst of the fighting, while the Winter Soldier covers their retreat. 

"Steve," Tony says, and his voice is breaking in Steve's ear, a private channel. "Steve, there's no way to win, here." 

"We have to try--" 

"There's  _ no _ way. The Wakandan guard is too small--the team is already retreating. There's no way to win!" 

"So what do we do?" Steve snaps, and Tony's voice shakes.

There is golden fury and ice blue sadness, a cascade of light and he  _ knows _ what Tony will say, before he does. "We watch." 

~*~ 

He takes the Time Stone from the Ancient One's corpse. 

He takes the Tesseract from Loki, and throws his limp body at Thor. 

His generals bring him the Mind Stone, and T'challa is snarling, fighting where his guards are holding him, because there is blood on the general's feet and hands and a vicious smile on her lips. "She died well, princeling," she coos and T'challa bellows, a noise of rage and grief, and Steve--he doesn't want to see this. 

He doesn't want to see them lose. 

"Do you remember, what you said," Tony murmurs, a quiet companion in his ear as he harries Thanos' armies back, biding their time. "That we'd fight, together. Do you remember what you told me when I said we'd lose?" 

Steve looks at the field, at their team in a cluster and the fear in Natasha's eyes, at the Wakandan prince and his shattered Dora Milaje. At the Hulk being swarmed by space dogs and Thor standing over his brother's crumpled body, and the empty spaces where their team should be. 

"We'd do that together," he murmurs. "Thor, Hulk--get to Widow." 

He fights his way across the field, and makes it to them, makes it to  _ Tony _ , as a blast of power shakes across the battlefield. 

There's a moment. 

A moment where they stand together, and everything is still, startlingly  _ still, _ and he thinks--maybe. 

And then Bucky makes a noise, takes a half step--and crumples into dust. 

"Nat," Clint says, high and scared and she clutches him and swallows a scream when he fades into nothing under her hands. Steve watches, horror and grief burning through him, an icy heat mingling with the bright red firework fear that's getting dimmer and--

"Cap," Tony says, voice disjointed and odd and Steve screams as Tony fades into dust. 

When he feels himself go, when he feels Nat's hands clutching and her voice begging and oblivion  _ yanks _ \--he's almost grateful. 

~*~

He wakes with gasp, jerking upright in a bed that’s overly large and intimately familiar. He jerks upright, and he can still taste a sweet wild country and blood and Steve's lips, and the sweet bitter taste of fruit he's never eaten. 

"Tones?" Rhodey grumbles, sleep slurred and rough on the far side of the bed, and Tony looks at him, moving stiff and heavy. 

His lower half is still and unmoving as Rhodey as shifts in the bed, his eyes bright and pained. There's a clutter of pain medicine on the bedside next to him, where they've been since Rhodey was released from the hospital, still healing and in so much pain he woke Tony screaming for a week straight. 

"Oh fuck," Tony gasps,  _ his _ Rhodey overlaying the image of another Rhodes, whole and hale and smiling, another Rhodes being pulled from the sky, and his panicked shouting and--

Tony lurches away from the bed, and hits his knees too hard, scrambles for the trashcan and is messily sick. 

"Tones!" Rhodey shouts, furious and scared, and it's so familiar, so  _ right _ that tears burn in his eyes, tears summoned by giddy relief and not just the way his stomach refuses to stop heaving. 

"FRI?" he says, tentative. 

"You alright, boss?" she asks, worries and he almost cries. 

There's a rightness to her sassy sweet voice where JARVIS has always been, a rightness that had felt  _ wrong _ , in Wonderland, even as he relished the time he had with his first AI. 

"I missed you, baby girl," he rasps and there's a heartbeat of pause, a hiccup from both his AI and his brother and he thinks, this is going to be a bitch to explain. 

It's then. 

That sparkle bright amusement meeting empty black nothing that he realizes--

Steve is gone. 

There is no one but himself, in his head. 

"Guess we're home," he says, and he hates that the empty place where he is used to Steve being is  _ empty _ . 

"Tony," Rhodey says, sharp and exasperated, "What the fuck?" 

~*~ 

He wakes. 

He wakes and for a moment, his heart pounds, and a scream catches in his throat and he can still  _ feel _ it, can still feel himself coming apart, feel the dust that was  _ Tony _ , blowing into his face as he drifted into a million bits of nothing. 

He wakes and he thinks, exhausted, he should be dead. 

He wakes and Shuri sits across from him, long legs crossed under her, eyes bright and worried. 

"How long?" he rasps. 

"An hour," she says, not bothering to dissemble. There's no point. He shoves the empty cup away from him and her head tips, just a bit. "How long was it for you? 

Months. 

A lifetime. 

Too fucking long. 

Not nearly long enough. 

"Where's my team?" he says, rough, and she huffs. "Look, Princess, you want to talk about it, fine. We will. Believe me, I’ve got things to say too--but first, I want my team. I want to know they're safe and whole." 

Her expression eases, just a little and she nods. "They're in your quarters, Captain." 

He stands and retreats to the door, impatient need burning in him, and Shuri calls after him. Her voice is lilting and touched with frustration and bright with confidence. "It was necessary." 

"Maybe. It was also cruel. I didn't expect that of you, princess." 

She smiles, then, and it's tight and feral and unfriendly. "My brother is the Panther--but I could have been. I was taught to be. My playmates the Dora Milaje. My bullies wanted my throne, my friends wanted my bed, and my elders wanted my head. I am the leader of the science division for the most technologically advanced nation in the world--and I am a girl-child. If you think I am not capable of cruelty and lies, Captain--I suggest you remember. I am not my brother." 

He stares for a moment longer, and then he goes, shaking, to find his team. 

~*~

He doesn't believe it, really. Not that they're safe, that he's  _ home _ and the people he loves are safe and whole, not until Happy pulls up to the Mansion and Tony steps out onto the steep stairs, hands tucked into his pockets as the door swings open and Peter spills out. The kid is chattering, and Pepper emerges a half step behind him, a small smile playing over her lips as he babbles about--

Band practice. The kid is chattering to the CEO of the top tech conglomerate in the world about  _ band _ practice. And from the gentle curve of her lips and the way she hooks her arm in Peter's--she doesn't mind. 

He reaches for them, not quite able to help himself. 

They're here, they're  _ here _ , and Pepper huffs a little as he squeezes her too close, the familiar scent of citrus and perfume grounding him. 

Pepper squeezes him and he smiles at her, at the kid that's hovering, not quite awkward, a step away. He drags Peter in with an arm around his shoulders. "God, it's good to see you both." 

"Tony," Pepper says, careful, the way only someone whose known him a very long time could. 

"Come in, Pep. I'll tell you inside." 

~*~ 

He tells them everything. 

To their credit, Pepper and Rhodey are silent throughout the entire story. Peter mutters disbelief between bites of eggs and bacon. Happy listens and leaves and storms back in and then vanishes again, cursing. 

When he's silent, finally, Rhodey sits forward, careful, and says. "You trust Rogers." 

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. 

"Tony," Pepper says, and her voice is patient, almost pitying. "What if he did this? To repair the trust he broke--he  _ knows _ you're the way the Rogues will come home--"

"It's not like that," Tony says. "He's not like that." 

"Dammit, Tones, you are still recovering from Siberia, you can't--"

"I'm calling him," he says, quickly. "I have to. And if--when they come here--I need you to know why." 

Pepper is trembling, blank faced and furious. Rhodey is glaring at him, hands tight around his coffee mug and Happy has vanished again, cursing and tripping over himself to get away. 

"Did he hurt you, there?" Peter asks, quietly. 

His heart squeezes, painful. There's a frown on the kid's face, small and serious. 

"No, Pete. It wasn't--it was good there." 

Peter nods, and says. "Ok." 

"Ok?" Tony echoes and Peter shrugs.

"You trust him. And that's enough." 

Rhodey and Pepper speak up at the same time, shouting, but Tony's eyes are on the kid, the one he picked from the streets, the one he wants to protect. The one staring at him, fierce and sharp-eyed and still so damn  _ young _ . 

"If he hurts you again, Mr. Stark--" 

"He  _ won't _ ," Tony says, fierce and Peter nods. Slow, but firm. 

"Ok." 

~*~ 

It doesn't calm Rhodey or Pepper. She leaves furious and resigned, and Happy bristles with worry. 

"You didn't tell them something," Rhodey says, watching Tony. "You talked about everyone--but not Peter, and not Pep." 

Tony is quiet, and watches him, the fear and grief is still to close, to strong to hide, and Rhodey--Rhodey who has know him for more of his life than he hasn't, who has seen every triumph and every failure and never once faltered--Rhodey watches him, and he sighs. 

"Bring them home, if you must. But don't expect me to forgive and forget, ok? Not yet." 

"You don't mind?" Tony asks, small and Rhodey shakes his head. 

"I do. But I trust you." 

~*~ 

"Man, you gotta understand--I saw you two hours ago." 

Steve grits his teeth. "Of all the shit we've seen in the past two years, Sam,  _ this _ is what you can't believe? Even  _ here _ ? They have a king who wears a cat suit and has the powers of a damn jungle cat granted to him by a cat god and you think that they can't play with alternate dimensions and time?" Steve demands, incredulous and Sam tips his head, considering and acknowledging. 

"That doesn't answer the important question," Clint says. "Why? What the hell was the point of taking you and Stark to..." 

"Wonderland," Steve murmurs, an ache blooming in his gut for Tony and the place that wasn't theirs, wasn't home, but felt like it could be. 

"Tony call it that?" Clint asks, arching an eyebrow and Steve shrugs.

"You trust him," Wanda says, and there's a hint of accusation and anger in her voice. "What has changed?" 

"Everything!" Steve bursts out. "Everything has changed and we even if nothing had--there is something  _ coming _ and we can't afford to fight amongst ourselves. Not when Thanos is coming." 

Wanda huffs, leaning back in her chair. "You sound like him, with his doomsday dreams and the end of the world." 

"They call him the futurist for a reason," Natasha says, evenly. "Tony has always looked to the future and how to protect us." 

"He imprisoned us," Clint points out. 

"Ross imprisoned us. He followed the Accords--and they weren't his idea." 

"We're his  _ team _ ," Clint snaps, suddenly, "and there was no loyalty to that." 

"Wonderland had them," Steve says, abruptly. "The Accords. We hadn't fought Ultron yet, there was no Legion, no Sokovia. Sam and Wanda--we didn't even know you. But we had the Accords. Because that team valued the  _ team _ more than the lives we were supposed to be protecting. I watched--God, I watched footage, of the team leaving civilians behind, knowing they were going to die, because they were so fucking intent on protecting each other." 

He looks at them, haunted, and shakes his head. "Tony is loyal to the people we protect, first. And he should be. We  _ all  _ should be. You--god, you  _ followed _ me, because I'm Captain America, and that's--it's not the reason to follow someone." 

"Steve," Sam starts and he shakes his head. Stands. 

"You're worth following," Scott say, loyal and earnest. 

"I didn't tell Tony about his parents. That Bucky killed them. Not until he saw the fucking footage in Siberia. I lied to him, for years." He stares at the team, his team, shocked to silence, and smiles coldly. "Still think I'm worth following, Scott? Still think I did the right thing?"

No one answers him, but then he didn't really expect them to. 

~*~ 

Sam finds him. He's tucked in a garden that Bucky loves, the green dappled with bright flowers and the air filled with exotic bird song. Bucky would nap here, sprawled across the bench while Steve watched the news scrolling on his tablet and Sam read at his feet. 

"You're real fucked up over this," Sam says, softly. 

"Yeah," Steve says. There's no point in lying--Sam wouldn't believe it anyway. 

"So what are you gonna do to make it right?" 

Steve looks at him, under his eyelashes, curious and assessing and says. "They won't like it." 

"Is it the right thing to do?" 

His side feels open and raw, exposed, the space where Tony should fit a yawning pit. There is the taste of dust on his lips, still and when he closes his eyes, he can see his team fading into nothing, a behemoth smiling in grim satisfaction. 

"Yes," he says, and touches the phone, a talisman in his pocket. 

~*~ 

He sits in the garden, and he can hear Sam and Nat, can hear the Dora Milaje and Shuri, and the hum of the dome that surrounds all of Wakanda, a comforting blanket. 

He wants, abruptly, to see Bucky, tucked safe and cool in his cryo sleep, wants to know he's close and safe, and whole.

He sighs and reaches for the phone. 

Tony answers on the second ring. "Steve," he breathes, soft and full of something he can't quite name. 

A tightness in his chest he hadn't realized was there loosens, hearing Tony's voice in his ear, so warm and comforting and familiar after all this time. 

They never talked about what life would look like, when they came home. What  _ they _ would look like. He's terrified to ask, and terrified to not know. 

It's not a problem for now. For now, there are questions to answer and Tony, a quiet noise slipping from him, waiting for Steve's response, anxious and sweet, and he smiles, tips his head back to stare at an endless sky. 

"Hey, shellhead." 

~*~

There are only five people waiting, when the Rogues return to America. The Accords Council wanted a spectacle, a press conference and photo op--Captain America and his Rogues returning, cowed and apologetic. 

Tony put his foot down, refused to negotiate at all, unless that was taken off the table. And because the optics of Captain America wandering around in a black suit without the stars and stripes was enough that even the Senate was getting flack for it--they bowed. 

There are five people waiting. Tony, impatient, and Peter, almost vibrating with his nerves. Rhodey stands a step away, close and protective, stronger every damn day, and visibly unimpressed with the whole damn circus. 

Strange waits, too, tucked in the shadows, impatient in a completely different way than Tony. Pepper is tapping on her tablet, impeccable in her white suit and black heels and killer smile. 

She still isn't happy about this, but she quit fighting it months ago. That, he supposes, could be said of almost any of them. 

The quinjet settles with a soft rumble, and the ramp lowers, and just like that--they're home. The people who were his team, and never his team, who were the family he wanted and not, all at once. 

Steve leads them down, and Tony takes a shaky breath. 

~*~

It's been eight months--a glacial age for Steve waiting in Wakanda and a blink for Tony forcing the Accords Council back to the bargaining table. 

Eight months since they stood side by side and faced an unrepentant princess and cryptic sorcerer. 

_ "Why did you do it?" Tony asked Strange. "What the hell was the point?"  _

_ "You warned them, didn't you? About Thanos and the war to come."  _

_ Steve shivered at that, at the name. Tony was tense and unhappy but he nodded and Strange shrugged, like that was explanation enough. "I merely ensured that they would listen."  _

_ He tilted a look at Steve. "You will listen, now, will you not, Captain?"  _

_ "It was cruel," he said, instead of answering the question.  _

_ "No more cruel than what you have done to your own team," Shuri said, an icy smile curling her lips and Steve flinched.  _

_ "Why did you put him in my head?" Tony asked, and Steve looked at him, sharp, stung by the defeat, by the  _ hurt _ note in his voice.  _

_ "Would you have trusted him, if he were not in your head?" Strange asked, and his voice was gentle in a way that dug under Steve's skin and twisted.  _

_ "What do we do now?" Tony asked, and Strange shrugs, a liquid indifference that Steve didn't buy for an instance.  _

_ "This is yours to do now, Stark. I cannot guide you."  _

_ Tony looked at Steve, and he wanted to drag the genius closer, into his arms, hold him against the shadows and fear in his eyes.  _

_ "Together?" he murmured, and Steve smiled.  _

_ "How, though?" Shuri asked, razor sharp and Tony smiled.  _

_ "Princess, I have something that should help Barnes."  _

~*~ 

It's...awkward. Tony, standing four feet away in a three-piece suit and a pair of sunglasses, his mouth set in a smile Steve knows too well from the press, and from their turbulent past, the smile he stopped seeing in Wonderland. 

For a moment, hovering there between his team and Tony's people, Steve almost wishes that they had the media circus the Council had requested, if only because it would smooth over this horrible awkwardness and it would explain that horrible smile. 

"Welcome to the Compound," the kid at Tony's elbow--Peter--chirps, and his voice is young, so damn  _ young _ and eager and his eyes are ancient, skating between Tony and Steve and protective. 

This is the boy whose death shattered Tony, once. In another world. 

"Thanks," Steve says, and he means it. He means it. 

"Not much has changed," Tony says, abruptly, shooing his kid back with a gentle nudge. "But I'll show you around." 

The team falls in behind them and Tony breezes through the Compound, the private wings where they will live and the training facilities. "SI maintains some offices in the lower levels, so avoid those--you won't have clearance, but--nothing hidden, just some R&D it's easier to access if it's on site. The rest of the place is yours. The Accords Council will be sending our liaison and their staff, we'll put them in the office wing. Keep 'em out of our hair. If you need anything--FRIDAY can help you." 

He pauses and glances at Peter. "You know Peter." 

The kid waves, a gesture that screams how very young he is, but makes Tony smirk. "Pete's identity is a secret. I'm gonna need each of you to sign an NDA about that. It's not part of the Accords agreement. It's to protect your team. So I can't force your hand here--" 

"Why is he still masked?" Clint asks. Wanda shifts, a little, her eyes narrow and assessing the boy. 

"Because he's a minor," Steve answers. "And until he's eighteen, he's sponsored to the team by a charter Avenger--Tony. And that Avenger has full discretion over his identity and protection." 

"Spot on, Cap. You read the Accords." Tony shoves his hands in his pockets. "Pete's a kid--" 

"Then why is he here?" Wanda asks. 

Tony glances at her. "You're gonna ask what a kid is doing fighting battles he's too young for?" 

She flushes, just a bit, but doesn't respond. 

"I'm here, because protecting innocent people is the right thing to do," Peter says, soft but firm. "And sending me away or unmasking me--it won't change that. I'll still be Spider-man. I'll still be a part of this team. So I guess--do you want me to trust you or not, is the question." 

Steve hides his smile and Tony waves them along, following him through the Compound. 

He gets it, though. Why Peter. Why Tony picked him. That flash of defiance and anger—it screamed  _ Tony. _

From the tiny smile, proud and gleeful, curling at Tony's lips, he knows he's right. 

The team--his team--is tense and quiet as Tony shows them around, a kind of wary stillness to them that worries Steve. 

He catches Bucky's eye, briefly, when he scours the gym with Sam. He's better, now, after months of Tony's BARF treatments and Shuri's neuro-rewiring, equipped with a black vibranium arm and a lightness he hasn't seen in his best friend-- _ this _ best friend--since before the war. 

"It's not gonna be easy," Bucky told him, when Steve first told him they were going home. "Being with Tony again--it won't be easy for any of the team. Or for him." 

"It's what we need," Steve said, firm and Bucky watched him, intent and assessing before he shrugged and nodded.

"If this is what you want, I'll follow your play, Steve." 

Time, he reminds himself, when Wanda skitters away from Peter, when Tony's expression tightens, and anger darkens those pretty eyes. 

They all need time. 

~*~

Tony is all smiles and reassurances and press face mask, until he leaves them standing in the living quarters. 

There's never a moment, when he can catch Tony's eye, catch his hand. There is Rhodey, and Peter, a living breathing shield between them. 

It's been eight months, since they came back and in all that time, he never let himself wonder if things would return to the way things had been in Wonderland, never let himself consider that they  _ wouldn't _ . There was only the driving need to undo the damage done to Bucky, to bring the team home. 

Now. 

Here. 

Tony close enough to touch and treating him like a friendly stranger--it stings. More than he expected. Maybe because he never expected it. 

He takes his bags and follows Friday's directions down the hall, to a corner apartment, and steps inside. 

It's dimly lit and well appointed, beautiful but understated. Impersonal. A bookshelf lined with mysteries and biographies and art books is the only thing that speaks to Tony's touch and Steve's presence, and that--

He shakes his head. Wonderland was a dream, a life neither had asked for. Maybe he wanted it, so damn bad he couldn't breathe--but that didn't mean Tony did. 

He steps into his room and freezes. 

The bed is oversized and messy. An MIT sweatshirt he knows damn well is too big for Tony is crumpled at the foot of the bed, with crimson and black blankets and sheets. There's a small stack of books on the bedside, a pile of clothes and socks in the corner, Tony's--

Tony's watch is sitting on the dresser. 

"Do you like it?" he asks, and Steve twitches, glances at the doorway to the bathroom. 

Tony is standing there in bare feet and legs, an oversized t shirt Steve recognizes as the kind he prefers skimming along his thighs. His expression is cautious and heartbreakingly open and hopeful. 

Steve drops his bag and reaches for him, and Tony--Tony melts, sliding into his arms so sweetly it makes Steve's heart trip over itself, speeding as he draws this sweet strong beautiful man into his arms. "It's perfect, sweetheart," he whispers, and Tony makes a noise, soft and needy and Steve smiles, leans down and brushes against his lips in the softest kiss, chaste and sweet and a promise for the future. 

~*~ 

They don't talk. He thinks they should. 

But then--they have talked and talked and talked, endless talking, enough talking that even Tony is fucking  _ tired _ of talking. 

They don't talk. Not when Tony is pressing against him and licking into Steve's mouth and making needy desperate noises he'd be ashamed of, if he could feel anything but giddy bone melting  _ relief _ . 

Not when they fall into the bed that looks right but smells wrong, and Steve's big body sprawls under him, right and familiar and achingly missed. 

Not when he scrambles to strip Steve out of his shirt, not when they fumble over their pants, laughing and stealing kisses and grinning as they strip. 

Not when they come back together and Steve drags him in a kiss so deep and dirty he's breathless and kneeing, cock leaking against Steve's abs. 

They don't talk when Tony slithers down, nipping and licking at Steve's nipples and grinning when he curses, not when Tony licks up his cock and takes him deep, not when Steve is breathless groans and greedy hands and rocking into his mouth. 

They don't talk until Tony is sliding a silver plug free and settling on Steve, and big hands braced on his hips, that thick cock filling him up and whiting out his thoughts and still--one thing stands out. 

He settles and Steve's eyes are blue flames, and maybe there's no warmth in his head, maybe there's no firework pleasure to know they're telling the truth. But he says it, anyway. "I love you," he whispers. 

Steve's smile, when it comes, is bright and beautiful and realer than anything he's ever seen.

**Author's Note:**

> [Follow me on Tumblr](https://areiton.tumblr.com)
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**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Looking Glass [Art]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21571858) by [Cachette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cachette/pseuds/Cachette)
  * [Art for "Wonderland"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21585181) by [tishawish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tishawish/pseuds/tishawish)




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